In the Old World
by ijs1337
Summary: Months after the infamous Winter, Elsa and Anna find themselves caught in the middle of a war between an ancient sect of knights and dark magic assassins. Things escalate when the assassins kidnap Anna, and Elsa and the knights must race across unfamiliar, old, dangerous parts of the world to get her back.
1. Chapter 1

**Note: My second Disney fic, and of course I decide to put an overly mature, dark spin on the property. Like I did with WALL-E (which I still need to eventually finish). But hey, inspiration struck, and I'll do my best to keep this from being completely serious and out-of-tone. I do not Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 1

So far, the coronation party was a splendid affair. Everyone marveled at the new queen, and marveled for completely different reasons at the Duke of Weselton's dancing with the princess. Then there was the slight loose gossip as the princess ran off with the unlucky thirteenth son of the Southern Isles.

There was one true out-of-place oddity at the party, however. A tall knight, clad in a mixture of highly ornate armor and heavy green cloth. A helmet that he hadn't seen fit to remove covered his face, and what looked to be a sort of pelt was draped over his shoulders. A large rectangular shield hung over the pelt, and a rather large sword was belted at his waist. He didn't drink, or talk, or dance. He just stood there, looking at all the guests.

"Who exactly do you think that man is?" Kai whispered to Gerda as the woman passed by, leading several servants to restock a portion of the buffet.

"Oh, probably some dignitary's bodyguard. You know how paranoid some of them can be."

* * *

Marius kept his position at the edge of the party, slowly gazing at each noble, each dignitary, each visiting lord and lady. He did his best to keep his use of magic hidden, quickly turning his head if anyone looked to directly at him. Discovery now would be disastrous.

Seeing that most were simply throwing annoyed, condescending glances his way, he decided to risk it again. He let his right hand drift to the small amulet hanging on his belt, and as his gloved fingers touched it, his eyes began to glow softly, and his sight changed.

A visiting queen who looked like she was from the far west had apparently had something magical happen to her hair years ago, though its effects had long since faded into uselessness. The woman's natural aura was… intriguing, though. Another man, an incredibly small one at that, seemed to be carrying some sort of enchanted ring in one of his suit pockets. There were a few other tiny sources, but none were the ones he sought.

Then, at last, he found what he was looking for. A seemingly ignominious noble, parked the whole night by the punch bowl. Marius was amazed he hadn't seen the noble before. The kind of man with an air of mild importance about him. For the briefest second, the very frame and appearance of the man blurred in Marius' gaze.

Marius quickly started forward, taking the time to surreptitiously grab and spill a glass of wine over the front of his armor, and clapped his arm around the man's shoulder when he reached him.

"By the gods, Marko? Is that you?" He said, making sure he was almost yelling, putting a slight slur to his words to make it seem like he was just what everyone assumed he was; a overly drunk boor of a bodyguard. "What's it been, five years? Six?"

"I'm sorry?" The noble replied, his face the picture of confusion.

"Oh, come on!" Marius moaned theatrically. "It was that business with the East Trading Company! We were on the same ship, pirates jumped us, I lost my sword, asked you to toss me the nearest one, and you panicked and threw me a swordfish that the cannons had blown out of the hold. And then you drank me under the table when we got back to port and celebrated our fortune at running across the most incompetent bunch of pirates to ever live." He laughed and slapped the man on the back. He grabbed him around the shoulder and started leading him out of the room. "But come on, surely you've had some better stories since, and I can only imagine that the really good ones are the ones you'd rather all your fellows not hear."

* * *

Marius lead the noble out of the main building of the palace, into a secluded area that contained a few high ledges above a pool fed by several waterfalls. He roughly shoved the noble near the edge, then drew his sword and pointed the blade straight at the man's chest.

"Are you mad, man? Do you know who I am?" The noble demanded haughtily.

"I know exactly who you are, Acolyte." Marius snarled. "Your illusions won't help you anymore." He tapped his amulet, and this time, a small wave of energy spread out over the noble, and his image fractured and burst away from him like shattered glass. In its place was a man clad from head to toe in dark leather armor, his faced and eyes obscured by a white mask with an ornate, black fire etched beneath the left eyehole. "Whatever it is you've planned to do here, you won't succeed."

"How very little you understand, General." The Acolyte hissed before he drew his sword with inhuman speed, knocking Maruis' blade away and swinging for the warrior's throat. Marius ducked beneath the swing and grabbed the Acolyte's arm and twisted, trying to hold the assassin's sword arm behind his back. The Acolyte twisted and contorted his arm impossibly, so it was back in front of him. But Marius still held a strong grip. The Acolyte backed up quickly, forcing Marius hard against a wall, then driving his free elbow up into the warrior's helmeted face. None of it was enough to hurt Marius, but it was enough to let his assailant slip free. The Acolyte thrust at Marius, but Marius ducked beneath the blade, and grabbed his arm, twisting around and wrenching the arm down across his shoulder, snapping the elbow. The Acolyte didn't make a sound. They'd been in fierce combat for over a minute, and he wasn't even breathing heavy. As though all the old human habits had been drilled out of him. Marius released the Acolyte and spun around, thrusting his sword through the man's chest. The assassin took a few steps back, dragging himself along the blade's length. He was at the very edge. Suddenly, he reached up and seized Marius by his shoulder plates, and tugged backward, dragging the two of them over the edge.

The Acolyte reached into one of the many pouches on his person, and withdrew a vial full of black, frothing liquid that somehow glowed with a unearthly light. He twisted the top of the vial.

Marius, realizing what the Acolyte was doing, twisted in midair and kicked downwards, launching the assassin off his sword blade down into the pool below. The body sank beneath the surface and was briefly visible for a few seconds before the vial exploded and a dark swirling substance engulfed the pool.

Having no intention of landing in the now vile deathtrap of a pool, Marius reached into his own pouches, and quickly lamented at his haste as several rare supplies tumbled down into the murky blackness and dissolved into sludge. He finally found what he was looking for; a similar vial, full of what looked like clear liquid silver. Marius twisted the top of the vial and hurled it down into the pool. He was just above the surface when it exploded up to meet him, the blackness washed away in a swirl of light.

After spending a few minutes in the pool's depths, making sure the Acolyte had been consumed by his own weapon, Marius dragged himself up to solid ground. As he emerged, he noticed he felt… cold. Too cold, considering it was the middle of summer.

That was when the night clouds suddenly darkened to an unnatural degree, snow almost instantly piled up on the ledges above him, and all the water and wet patches of his armor and clothes, which was just about everything on him, froze.

"Well that's just perfect." He sighed.

* * *

A day later, Marius shouldered his pack over his relatively thawed-out suit, and began the first leg of his journey out of Arendelle, heading for an actually usable port to reach his next destination.

Cold hadn't truly bothered him in years, but that didn't mean he still didn't find it grating for whatever reason. He was almost glad that Stilicho had sent an urgent request for him to come to the Dreadlands.

Almost. Stilicho needed help because he had found the hidden nesting grounds of the last of the Drakelords.

**So, yeah. The impersonations of drunkenness and Marius' spun tale, the freezing armor, the discovery of the last of the Drakelords (for this to make sense, think of the way Tolkien fancily describes dragons as Fire Drakes. Drakelords would, in this case, be massive, multi-millennia-old dragons that can breathe/secrete everything) are all intended to create a lighter atmosphere against the intrigue and stabbing and dark-magic-acid-poison and arm-breaking. How much humor I'll be able to work in when things really get going, I'm not too sure. But I'm not going to not try.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Note: We're getting into post-movie territory, and spoiler territory now, so if you haven't seen Frozen and you care about going in spoiler-free (And if you haven't, you really should see it somehow), then don't read until you do. We're also getting into darker territory as well. So prepare yourselves.**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 2

Hans sat, lazing in his cell in the dungeons of his home in the Southern Isles. Gazing out the solitary window that had a view up into the courtyard, he could just make out the moon, shining in the night. It was the sound of footsteps that drew his gaze to his cell door. There was a soft metal jingling, and the door slid open. On the other side was a man clad in dark red leather, a white mask covering his face, an emblem of black fire emblazoned beneath the left eyehole.

"Don't you think it's a bit risky, to strut around the dungeons so openly?" Hans asked.

"There are none here left to see us." The man replied. He'd said his name was Mortemer. He walked into the cell and undid locks on the chains wrapped around Hans' wrists, then lead him out of the cell. They passed by body of Wallace, captain of the Watch. He was at his chair, his throat covered in bruises, his face purple and staring. Hans felt a pang of guilt as they passed the body. Wallace had always been a good man. A fair man, even to Hans, even when he'd come home in disgrace, charged with attempted regicide and usurpation of Arendelle's throne. But this group Mortemer represented, they'd promised him that which he had always craved. Power; kingship. He'd thought he'd since left such ambitions behind, but their promises stirred something in him. And, he reflected, no passing of power went without some blood. Especially that of good men.

* * *

As they wandered through the halls of the palace, Hans couldn't help but wonder where all the staff and guards had gone. It wasn't until they reached the doors to the Royal Dining Room that he began to feel unnerved, that maybe he was out of his depth where these men where concerned.

When the doors opened, revealing the bodies of several servants, and the entirety of the Hans' family, he knew he had made a terrible mistake.

"So, how would you prefer the story be told?" Mortemer asked. "We might have killed them with poison, but that doesn't mean we can't make it look like something else. Though given you're fairly infamous activities, your right of inheritance of power could be suspect." The man stopped, and placed a hand over his chin, thinking. "Perhaps we, that is to say, the Brothers and myself, fell upon them, as assassins from another kingdom. You heard the screaming, broke out of your cell through sheer determination, and fought us off, though you were tragically too late to save your family." Mortemer nodded. "Yes. That strikes me as a suitable tale, _King_ Hans." He drew his long, serrated sword and started towards the body of Edmund, the oldest brother.

Hans had barely heard a word. He had been staring, dumbstruck, at the death around him. It was as though, for the first time in months, he could see and think clearly.

He saw himself, saw what he had tried to do, what he was now responsible for, and what he truly meant to the people who had murdered his entire family.

"No." He finally said.

"No?" Mortemer asked, amused. "So you'll happily lie and kill others in far-off lands, but when it's your family of tormentors who pay the price for your power, that's the line you draw?" He shook his head. "You've a strange sense of honor."

"Whatever schemes, whatever plans you and your kind have, I'll not be a part of them. I'll not be your puppet." Hans reached down to the body of a nearby guard and drew the man's sword, holding it out before him. "And I'll not let you leave without answering for the death my family."

Mortemer held up his free hand, and a dark green light burst into existence within his fingers. Hans' head suddenly felt as though it would split open, and he dropped to his knees in agony.

"Wrong. On all counts." Mortemer said. "We won't answer for your family. You are going to help us, Hans. Whether you want to or not."

* * *

Marius shifted on the small stool in his tent. It had taken almost half a year, and the aid over half of the Fourteenth Company, to at last bring down the Drakelord and exterminate its spawn. As always, when the Fourteenth gathered en masse, they worried about how many would still be standing at the battle's end. There were so few of them. Each man and women was as valuable as a mountain full of diamonds and gold, and every loss was keenly felt by all.

What Marius needed was some good news. Or at the very least, something not quite so big as a Drakelord that he and the Fourteenth could sink their blades into to distract themselves.

The detachment from the South had brought perhaps one of those.

Diomedes and Vitalion had headed the Fourteenth's detachment in the Southern part of the world. Diomedes, the combat surgeon and alchemist without peer, and Vitalion, former commander of the Twelfth, an aging veteran of countless wars, yet strong enough to fight off a dozen men at once without breaking a sweat.

Marius emerged form his tent and greeted his old comrades warmly, though the mood all but evaporated upon hearing the news the two bore with them.

"The royal family of the Southern Isles has been murdered. All but one. As far as any know, he's fled the kingdom, fled his crime. But Diomedes and I got a look in. This wasn't the work of an angry, neglected princeling. This was the work of the Covenant." Marius could feel the hands of the knights in the camp tightening on swords at the news that their old enemies had thrown another kingdom into chaos. "There's more," Vitalion said, pulling a large map from his belt. He spread it out over the ground. "My personal network has noticed, at no small risk to themselves, a great deal of activity on the Covenant's part. As best as they can tell, Brotherhood Acolytes and Embers are massing, as much as they _can_ mass, at these locations." He tapped several circles drawn over the map. "Notice anything?"

Marius took a closer look.

"They're surrounding Arendelle." He finally said.

"We've all heard of the winter the kingdom was thrown into," Diomedes put in. "Maybe that has something to do with it."

"I was there, at the start. Nearly froze solid after a Acolyte dragged me into a pool before the flash-freeze." Marius looked up from the map to quizzical gazes. "Well, Stilicho told me he'd found the last of the Drakelords." Marius said defensively. "I wasn't going to hang around and investigate a winter in the middle of summer. Besides, you know I don't care for cold."

"Regardless," Vitalion said. "The Covenant is making moves. For them, some sort of game is on."

Marius stepped up from the map.

"Well, we'd better make sure that they don't win it." He intoned. He turned to face the camp and called out. "Everyone! Pack it in. Get the wounded ready to move, and prepare the ships for an assault. We're going to Arendelle."

**Yeah, not a whole lot of humor here, but it's hard to put in humor in a situation of familial assassination and the aftermath of fighting a super-dragon and said dragon's brood. I have some ideas for funny bits later down the line, but right now, with such a focus on set-up and introducing the Frozen gang to the new (well, technically old) factions they'll be dealing with, there isn't a whole lot of room for silliness. Which stinks.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Note: So, as the first chapter that focuses more on the actual characters of Frozen, there is most definitely some potential to have shenanigans ensue, but let's not forget the bigger story here; dark magic assassins and ancient knights. Who will come in and be… disruptive to the typical routine, to say the least. But, anyway, I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 3

As she looked at the scene before her, Anna couldn't help but laugh. She knew she probably shouldn't, that a very dear friend had had something very important taken from him, but she couldn't help herself.

"Come on, guys. That's my nose! I need it. Not to smell, or anything, but it comes in handy!" Olaf called as he chased several boys around the small ice rink in the middle of town. This had been going on for several minutes, after a dog had yanked it off his head the day before, a group of boys had decided to emulate the dog, but to even greater effect. Whenever Olaf got near one of them, the particular thief would toss it to one of his friends, and Olaf would hurriedly change direction, sometimes sliding over the ice and having to ask passerby to roll his torso and legs back to his head before he could resume chasing his stolen extremity.

"Someone should probably make them stop." Anna finally said as Olaf dove for the most recent recipient of his nose, who slid out of the way and let Olaf flatten his face against a pillar.

"Go ahead. Me, I'm content to sit back and watch the show." Kristoff replied, leaning back against his sleigh.

"You're just saying that because you don't want to get involved in a match with any of the kids again." Anna shot, smirking as she her way onto the rink.

"I swear, I don't know how they're so much better at making snowballs than I am," Kristoff called helplessly. "I figured if I had them beat at one thing, it would be snowball fights." His mind flashed back to the unrelenting barrage of snowballs the town's children had pelted him with when he'd made the mistake of challenging them.

* * *

Gregor shifted to his spyglass to his other hand, and did his best to not look too far down. Being on the border patrol at sea wasn't the worst of jobs, but he didn't do well with heights, and had somehow ended up in the crow's nest. He did his patented 'quick-spin-take-in', the name the crew had come up with for his talent for quickly spinning around in place at the center of the nest, and still being able to spot anything out of place.

This time, he saw a small ship, making its way towards the border from the south. He took a deep breath, then leaned over the edge and shouted down that he'd spotted something. He quickly pulled his head back up and turned to the bucket he kept nearby, preparing for the worst.

Why didn't he just close his eyes when he had to yell things down to the others?

* * *

Martin slid down a rope onto the comparatively much smaller ship that Gregor had spotted. It was far smaller than any of the ships that patrolled the kingdom's sea borders, but it was fairly respectable. Large enough for a small family to journey a good ways on, and have enough space to pack provisions so as to not live in horrible conditions.

Martin made his way to the hatch leading to the quarters.

"Excuse me," He called through the door as he knocked on it. "I don't mean to be a prude, but… you've wandered into our kingdom unannounced. If you're just… nobody, that's fine, but I'm still going to need to check. Make sure you're not, I don't know, planning something devious. With your little ship." Martin chuckled at that. He knocked a few more times, and waited. It took five minutes before he began to wonder, and then he tried to force the door open, and had to marvel at how blind he could be as he noticed the bolt on the other side of the door.

He got more men on the boat barely two minutes later, two of them banging away at the hinges with hammers. The rest were waiting at the door, hands on their swords and fingers near the triggers of crossbows.

With loud smashes, the hinges finally broke, and the door was kicked open. And every man there could only gaze in astonishment at what they saw on the other side.

Lying unconscious on a mat, his hair grown out, his clothes unwashed, his face drawn, was Hans of the Southern Isles.

* * *

Hans woke with fury and terror in his mind, a strangled cry coming from his lips as he desperately tried to reach for a sword on the ground that wasn't there. The chains attached to the manacles on his wrists brought him short and sent him crashing face-first onto the floor. He rolled over and scooted his way back under his arms, looking wildly around, breathing frantically.

"Well, you certainly look and act like you've gone off the deep end." A voice called from a shadowy corner. For a second, Hans wondered if the men, the Brotherhood, had found him yet again, but then the speaker stepped out of the darkness, and he realized he knew exactly who she was.

"Elsa?" He said disbelievingly.

"I think you forget to add _Queen_" Elsa said shortly, crossing her arms over her chest, her expression one of absolute disgust.

"What… where am I?" Hans asked. "The last thing I remember-"

"You're in a dungeon. In Arendelle. I really thought that would be obvious."

"No, that's not… I wasn't even…he was going to-" Hans ran through a muddled assortment of thoughts and memories before Elsa cut him off.

"Enough, Hans. You really can't expect us not to know. I wouldn't be surprised if every kingdom in the world knows by now." She stared in disbelief and scorn at the blank look he gave her. "Word from the Isles is that you broke out of your cell and went on a rampage, murdered your family at the dinner table and fled the kingdom soon after." Her distaste only grew when he started shaking his head. "We both know you're not above murder to gain power, Hans. And from what I've heard from Anna and some of your brothers, there was very little love lost between you and your family. The only thing I really don't understand is why you would come here."

She turned to leave when he finally spoke again.

"Because I didn't choose to." The way he said it was so different from how he'd sounded a few seconds before. Turning back around, Elsa looked at him. He looked as fevered and rugged and unwashed as ever, but there was something else now, as though recitation of his most recent crimes had jogged something in him. "I'm many things, Elsa. Most of them bad. But I swear to you, I did not kill my family, and I did not choose to come here." He stood up from the floor. "I will admit, I went along with them, but only because I didn't think they'd go so far as to kill-"

"Spare me, Hans. I'm not about to listen to more of your-"

Hans lunged against the chains, reaching for her, as though to grab her shoulders to emphasize his words.

"You need to listen. Please. Because I figured it out. Why they put me here, sent me here." Elsa's face was the picture of skepticism, but she decided to indulge Hans, if only to hear what sort of wild tale he spun. "Men came to me. Men who said they could put me on the throne. I thought… I thought I'd left that behind, but when they said it… I agreed. But if I'd known what they'd planned, I never would have. Their leader, he has magic. I don't how but he does."

"Get to the point, Hans." Elsa said shortly. Despite her internal astonishment that there might be others out there with magic in them, she had to remind herself that this was Hans telling the story.

"They were about to start… cutting up the bodies when he used whatever it was. He said that I would help them, whether I wanted to or not." Hans voice had taken on a different tone. As though he was explaining some grand mystery he had just solved. "Then, I woke up here. Now, what's the one thing that me being here will do?"

Elsa shrugged.

"It distracts. The guards, the people, you, everyone. You're all focused on me, the great and terrible Hans. And that's just what they want," He was shifting now, going from calm explanation to a frightened, hurried one. "They want you distracted, focused on me, so they can sneak in. Because… because they never wanted me on the throne. I think that all they wanted was to send the Southern Isles into chaos. And they did just that. Now they send me here. Where do you think they're next target is?"

Elsa fixed Hans with a look reserved for old men who carried bells down the street, baying about how the world would soon end. She turned around and made her way to the cell door, sliding it open.

"Elsa, please." Hans said. He was practically begging now. "You can despise me, you can never believe another word that comes out of my mouth, but you have to believe me now."

His only answer was the slam of the door and the sound of keys turning in the lock. Hans slumped against the wall. He'd figured it out. He'd told her. It was up to them to save themselves from what had to be coming.

**I thought of Hans as a jerkbag, sure. But he definitely strikes me a jerkbag with limits. There are things he simply won't do, and things that will make him really step back and reevaluate himself. He's a jerkbag, sure, but he's not a psychopath. **

**Also, as far as updates, I'm not going to try and tie myself too tightly to a schedule, because once classes start back up in a few weeks, I'll probably only have enough time to work on one story, and I've already got a scheduled, fairly long-running Star Wars fic going.**

**But we'll see.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Note: So, we've got some excitement coming, on just about all fronts.**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 4

Elsa leaned back against her pillows and sighed. After she had talked with Hans, she, Anna, Kristoff and a few other key players in Arendelle had discussed whether or not anything Hans had said had any merit.

While everyone agreed that Hans seemed to believe what he was saying, they also just as quickly agreed that none of them did. Almost none.

Because as much as Elsa wanted to agree wholeheartedly, to accept that Hans had simply snapped, she wasn't completely sure. Even if all he'd presented to her sister up until that moment in the room when she'd asked him to save her life had been a disguise, she'd always felt that perhaps he'd shown a bit more of himself than he should have. His admittance about his brothers' treatment of him, for one. And, from what she'd heard, his openness and care for the people. While his family had clearly turned him into something detestable, there were still some good to the man, if only just. Besides, she reflected, family was still family, and she wasn't sure if even Hans had it in him to kill his family.

She drew her blanket a bit closer around her, and tried to force herself to go to sleep.

* * *

Gilbert whistled a tune to himself as he made his way through the halls. Night patrol was, oddly enough, a duty he found he liked. It got him away from all the usual hustle and bustle and noise the city, and especially the palace, always seemed inundated with.

He passed by one of the balconies, before he realized that something wasn't right. He quickly backtracked and went out to the balcony proper. Gazing down into the courtyard below him, he saw what was wrong.

The complete lack of any other guards. There were usually at least two others, a third when he really needed the coin, and right about now was when they'd usually meet up in the courtyard, run a quick game of cards for laughs. He held his lantern out, and placed his free hand over an edge to direct the light at the patio the three always played on.

They were there alright. And they looked…

Gilbert spun around, planning to yell out and raise the alarm when a strong hand clamped over his mouth and forced him back against the edge of the balcony. He gazed, terrified, at the white-masked man clad in black leather. Gilbert could just barely make out the rising sword in the man's hand before the pommel came crashing down on his head.

* * *

Mortemer gazed at the sleeping princess. He couldn't help but wonder what exactly made her so special.

He reached out with the tip of his sword and poked her arm. She jerked awake and looked like she was about to scream when he clamped his hand over her mouth. He reached back with his sword and jerked the blade up and down. He let the princess reach out to turn on the oil lamp, revealing the half-dozen men standing in her room, one of who was holding the ice harvester, with a sword to his throat.

"Scream, call for help, cause any trouble, and your man dies." Mortemer whispered to her. "Understand?" The princess, eyes wide with fear, nodded. Mortemer leaned back and motioned with his blade for her to get up. Then her eyes narrowed, and he realized he might have underestimated her.

Her bare foot shot up from beneath the blankets and crashed into his chin as she grabbed the lamp off the desk and hurled it into the face of the Brother holding the harvester. The man turned and punched the nearest Brother hard in the face as the princess leapt from her bed to the floor and screamed loud enough to be heard throughout the entire palace.

"RUN!"

* * *

Elsa was jarred from her sleep by the sound of breaking glass a few doors down. Anna's scream a few seconds later drove any notion and feeling of tiredness from her.

She burst through the door of her room, running out into the hallway as Anna and Kristoff ran past her. As she looked down at Anna's room, she saw several masked men picking themselves up off the floor, drawing swords and preparing to follow.

Elsa swept her hand across the hall, casting a wide beam of power that solidified into a wall of ice that filled the hallway down to Anna's open door. Satisfied that the attackers were contained, Elsa turned and ran after her sister.

* * *

Anna smirked as she heard Elsa block the path behind them. She had no idea who these men were, but they clearly wanted-

Her train of thought was completely derailed when other of them came crashing through the window in front of her. Thinking quickly, she dove back and tried her best to drag Krisoff with her. A streak of white shot over her head and told her she'd been right. The man fell to the floor, dragged down by his torso that was encased in a ball of ice. As Anna looked up at Kristoff, the two of them had a brief moment to reflect on and become embarrassed by the slightly compromising position Anna had dragged him down in before Elsa ran forward and pulled the ice harvester to his feet.

* * *

They made their way to the front of the palace, several guards who'd been alerted by all the commotion in tow. It was when they reached the front hall that they were stopped.

Mortemer stood in front of the doors, gazing at them, surrounded by his fellows. He turned at the sound of heavy footfalls, and smiled beneath his mask. He began clapping, as slowly as he could.

"Well, your majesty, I think we can all agree that this has been an eventful evening. But unfortunately for you, I've run out of patience." His tone shifted as he talked, from light-hearted to acidic. "Now, you and your sister will-"

He was cut off as Elsa shot a blast of ice in front of him, causing large spikes of ice to shoot up from the floor and spear through his clothes, suspending him a few inches above the ground while pinning him against the locked doors.

Elsa quickly went to work on the others, keeping her methods varied. A few she pushed against the walls and trapped inside suddenly formed boxes of ice; others she kept in place by simply freezing their feet to the floor. The guards moved to subdue the few she left alone. Once every one of them was secured, she sauntered her way to Mortemer and smirked at him.

He laughed.

"Oh, how little you comprehend, your highness."

His body burst into wisps of black smoke, and he was suddenly at the other end of the room, thrusting his sword through the back of a guard.

All around the room, the other assassins followed suit, magically disappearing out of their icy confinement or more typical bindings and leaving guards dead on the floor in their wake.

"Now, your highness," Mortemer said, wiping his blade on the shirt of the guard he'd killed. "I believe you were about to come with us."

Elsa fired a beam of ice at him in response, but he simply teleported out of its path, laughing. "Much as I enjoy this little game we've been playing, I also tire of it." He drew a small crossbow from his belt and fired through one of the windows. Anna gazed at the large, fiery projectile that arced through the air over the palace gates before exploding.

Suddenly, several more explosions lit the night. Screams quickly followed.

"So, this is how events will play out;" Mortermer explained, his satisfaction evident in his smug tone. "You will come with us if you want your people to survive the night."

**I considered holding the next chapter hostage until I see some reviews, but…**

**Much as I enjoy seeing what people think of the story (even if you have some negative points (which I want to hear, by the way; criticism is the foundation of improvement and discovery of new ideas and concepts)), that's a bit too vindictive for my tastes. So the next chapter will go up… when I write it to the point that I'm happy with it, I guess.**

**As for how the girls are able to escape and temporarily fight off a cadre of magical assassins, I'm not sure that needs explaining. Disney princesses haven't taken anything lying down since the days of Pocahontas, but that's a trait that has been especially apparent with the last collective three they've made (Merida, Rapunzel, and the Frozen sisters). **

**Anna threw a snowball at a giant magical already-bad-tempered snow-golem, and instantly wanted to help fight off hungry wolves. Elsa has ice magic. Magic of any kind makes you more or less capable of fighting lots of things, and Elsa, once she got over the danger of her powers, clearly had a metric ton of fight in her, too.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Note: Here's where we might earn that rating change I talked about. Though, after reading some other Frozen works that will go unnamed, I'm not too worried I'll stray beyond 'T' boundaries. At least not for a while.**

**Also, to clarify: I do not intend to hold chapters hostage until arbitrary review quotas are met. The only thing holding chapters hostage going forward will be my ability/available time in which to write them.**

**Also, thank you to Frost Knight and tinmiss1939.**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize (they're wonderful motivation). Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 5

Elsa couldn't respond at first. The choice Mortemer had laid before her was too terrible to even think of, let alone answer on the spot. Give herself and Anna up, or watch her people…

That was when another explosion and bout of screaming sounded, and she instantly knew what she had to do. She stepped forward, gazing fiercely at Mortemer, and opened her mouth to give him her answer.

Anything she might have said was stolen away by the blaring of horns. Elsa spun and gazed through the windows, at the dozen ships tearing into the harbor, at the mass of torches charging into the town's borders from the cliffs.

"No," Mortemer almost whispered to himself. "No. No, no, no, NO!" His voice had steadily risen, turning into a panicked scream. He loaded another bolt into his crossbow and fired a burning red shot out over the castle bridge.

As the boats all but crashed into the docks, Elsa could see dozens upon dozens of armored warriors leap off and charge. The only uniform feature was their armor and the pelts of animals draped across their shoulders and backs; the robes and cloth beneath were wildly varied. Some were clad in a dark blue, others in green, some in grey, or red. There were seven different colors, from what she could see.

Half of the mass of warriors split and made for the town proper, while the other half charged toward the palace. Elsa felt her gaze draw itself back to the burning red crossbow bolt, and then drawn directly beneath it as a mass of men appeared in a cloud of smoke, exactly like Mortemer's magical teleportation. But these men were different, clad in dark grey iron plate and black chain mail, stark white helms covering their heads. They carried shields and pikes and bows, and stood to meet the oncoming warriors, who crashed into the soldiers with an almost palpable fury.

* * *

"Run this by me again." Vitalion requested, gazing at the map of Arendelle.

"It's simple," Marius said, reaching out with the tip of his sword. "We split the Fourteenth into thirds. You and I command a third each, Stilicho takes the last. We make a show of our arrival, blow the horns, bash our shields, and put the Covenant on edge. You and I lead our portions in on the boats, come in through the fjord. Stilicho attacks from land, coming in from the mountains. When we dock, you lead your contingent into town, and with Stilicho, you bottleneck and slaughter any of the Covenant you find. Meanwhile, I lead my third to the palace, and secure it." Marius pointed all around the map with his sword to illustrate.

"You don't have much to work with." Vitalion noted fairly.

"I request Tarkus for my third." Marius replied suddenly, his tone leaving no room for debate.

"Forget I said anything." Vitalion gazed at the map, considering. "Well, it's a damn sight better than the plans you used to come up with."

"Those weren't even plans, they were more stances on who we ought to kill and how many people we ought to throw at them." Marius admitted.

"And look how far you've come." Vitalion slapped Marius on the shoulder, laughing.

* * *

Marius watched as the front line around him crashed into the massed Embers waiting in formation at the courtyard, blocking their access to the bridge leading to the palace. He knew exactly what to do.

"Pull back!" He yelled, and watched as the knights around him immediately disengaged and moved backwards, shields at the ready. "Tarkus!" Marius screamed, pointing his sword at the front of the Ember shield wall.

The line of the knights parted, and Tarkus, clad in his signature black armor, his black bear pelt flowing behind him like a lord's cape, charged through and hefted his enormous iron broadsword, leading into a great sweeping strike that cut through shield and flesh, and sent those it failed to cut flying through the air. With one mighty swing, Tarkus had broken the Embers' formation, and the rest of the knights poured into the gap he'd made.

Marius hacked and cut his way through the Embers, as he and several knights began to clear a path to the palace.

* * *

The doors were smashed off their hinges as the knights raced into the room, and the Brothers quickly ported around, trying their best to stall them. Unfortunately, they had to contend with both the knights and the royal family of Arendelle. Mortemer watched in steadily mounting panic as the Brothers were cut down, or frozen solid and quickly shattered by shields and blades. As he watched General Marius drag his sword from the eye socket of the last standing Brother, he made his move.

* * *

Anna had punched one of the attempted kidnappers into the sword path of one of the knights. She had turned to see if Elsa needed help when a strange sound and smoky smell came from just behind her. A gloved hand quickly closed around her throat, and her vision was briefly obscured by a burst of black smoke. She felt as if she had somehow come apart on a tiny level before she felt whole again. Suddenly she was looking at Elsa's horrified face from across the room. She felt the edge of a sword press against her throat.

* * *

"Not one step further, General!" Moretemer yelled as Marius approached him. "Come any closer, and the girl dies."

Marius stopped where he was, and gazed at Mortemer holding the slightly terrified, yet oddly determined-looking princess at swordpoint. He wondered for a second why on earth both she and her sister were still alive. Then it hit him, and he smiled beneath his helmet.

He took another step forward, causing Mortemer to draw back and press his blade more tightly against the girl's throat.

"Didn't you hear me, General? Any closer, and I'll slit her throat!"

"No you won't." Marius said. "You need her, for whatever reason you demented mind has contrived. Why else would she still be alive? Why would you attack the kingdom itself, why try to force their cooperation?" He shook his head at the sheer stupidity of Mortemer's threat. "You won't kill her, or the queen, because you need them both. But, by all means, prove me wrong." He took another step, and tightened his grip on his sword.

Anna felt the blade lift itself off her throat.

She made her move, balling up her free hand into a fist and driving it between the man's legs as hard as she was able. Slipping out of his now considerably slackened grasp, she spun around and punched him in his masked face. She turned to run, but he quickly brought himself back up and grabbed her arm, then raised his sword.

Suddenly, another sword whirled through the air almost too fast for her to see and buried itself in Mortemer's shoulder. The knight, the one Mortemer called General, charged forward as Mortemer released his grip on Anna. The knight thrust his hand out and wave of force erupted from his palm, blasting Mortemer into and through the wall he stood behind.

"Close your eyes." The General whispered to Anna.

* * *

Mortemer teleported behind Marius, because that was how men like Mortemer started fights. He'd pulled Marius's sword out of his shoulder, and was carrying it in his off-hand. He swung his first sword, which Marius deflected with his shield, then Mortemer swung Marius's own weapon at him. Marius slid to the side, then reached out and seized Mortemer's hand, twisting and turning and practically throwing the assassin over his shoulder to wrest the blade out of his grip.

Mortemer landed on his feet and kicked out, catching Marius in the chest and pushing him back. Mortemer teleported in close, thrusting his blade at Marius's throat.

Marius just managed to get his shield up, and pushed back against the sword tip, throwing the blade and the arm that held it wide out of place. Marius took advantage of the opening he'd created and swung his sword with blinding speed, slicing through Mortemer's arm. He followed up by swinging the blade across the assassin's throat. He didn't really do much at all besides leave a deep cut. But, taken with his missing arm, it was enough to take Mortemer out of the fight. He dropped to his knees, reaching up with his one remaining arm to grasp at his throat.

But Marius was nowhere near done with the assassin.

He savagely kicked at Mortemer's stomach, sending him crashing to the floor and sliding on his back for several inches. Marius approached the assassin, twirling his sword so the point was facing the floor. He raised the blade up and plunged it down into Mortemer's chest. Reversing his grip, Marius yanked his sword out, and turned to his troops. Gazing down the bridge, he saw that the Embers had been eradicated.

"Tarkus," He yelled down the bridge. "Take the rest of the contingent into town. Any knight who can give aid to the people is to do so."

Finally, he turned to regard the queen. He sheathed his sword and bowed his head respectfully.

"Your Majesty," Marius said. "I present to you the Lion Knights of Forossa, Fourteenth Company, at your service."

**I decided, while I was writing this chapter, to change the name of the organization of dark-magic assassins, because I realized that a organization of dark-magic assassins would not, realistically, be a complete boys' club. And the name "Brotherhood" implies such. Plus, "Covenant" carries extra, hinting connotations as to where I got the idea from, and what their exact deal is. I'll be altering the previous chapters to reflect the name change.**

**I'm subtly hinting at where I'm drawing inspiration for the OC organizations here, with Forossa and Lion Knights and an impossibly awesome knight with black armor named Tarkus.**

**Props to anyone who figures it out before I practically spell it out through exposition in the coming chapters.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Note: In response to the guesses; I did not know that there was a Brave character named Tarkus. And the Tarkus in the Lion Knights is in no way related to Brave; the black bear pelt was a black bear pelt because I figured it takes a seriously tough guy to kill a bear with just a sword and shield. I admittedly was watching a playthrough of Ryse when I was trying to come up with actual names for characters I'd already had down in terms of who they were and what they'd do. But neither of those is the main source of where I'm taking some cues for some of the major history at play here. So as not to come across as a crossover (or exponentially worse, a instance of plagiarism) this chapter will be a bit of an exposition dump, and I'll give the source inspiration in the endnote.**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 6

Marius looked out at Arendelle from the balcony. The capital town itself looked no more worse for wear, which belied all that had transpired the night before. Several citizens were injured, and word was that a few were dead. And while Marius felt their loss, he had his own to look to.

Diomedes' latest report put well over a dozen of the Fourteenth out of action with severe injuries, and a scant few who needed burials.

It was with this in mind that he met with the queen properly. They'd exchanged briefly, giving names and thanks, but they'd all had urgent business to attend to in the aftermath of the Covenant's attack. Marius hoped he'd be able to keep himself fairly civil.

* * *

At first, he preformed all the proper moves; bowing, using honorifics, waiting for her to speak. But she didn't. She just looked at him, a puzzled expression on her face. After almost a minute, she snapped a finger.

"That's it." Elsa said to herself.

"What is?" Anna whispered.

"He was at the coronation. You remember, that one drunk bodyguard who dragged the noble away?"

"He was no noble," Marius cut in, making the sisters jump in surprise that he had been to hear them. "He was a part of the group that attacked you and your kingdom last night. He'd disguised himself with a spell of illusion."

"Well, General, I'd very much like to hear more about this group, and what exactly you and your people are here for." Elsa replied, making sure it sounded like a request, not a command.

Marius smirked beneath his helmet.

"With all due respect, your majesty," He rose from his knees and slid his sword into its scabbard. "You first."

"Excuse me?" Elsa asked, affronted.

"No, I don't believe I will." Marius set his hand on the hilt of his sword. "You don't know those who attacked you, but I do. The Lion Knights have a long, bloody history with them, and they have _never_ done what they did to you." He'd started pacing as he talked, and now he began to approach the two sisters. "I'm not sure what impression I gave you last night, but the Knights are few. The Fourteenth, at its height, was 1,200 strong. Over the last six months, we were reduced to an even thousand." He sighed angrily, but didn't step closer. Not yet. "My chief apothecary has given me his latest report; thirty of my people are fighting for their lives as we speak, and fifteen are in need of graves." Now he stepped forward, getting unbecomingly close. Elsa tightened one hand into a fist, slowly letting magic seep into her curled fingers. "We bought your safety with blood and death, highness. I believe we've a right to know just who it is we've saved." Marius hissed angrily.

Elsa fixed him with a look of anger, but also understanding, and raised her clenched fist. She turned it over, and opened her fingers, letting a beam of frost and snow shoot up into the ceiling. "You were the one…" Marius said, gazing at the growing cover of ice across the ceiling. "The flash-freeze, six months ago. You caused it."

"I'm surprised you didn't know already." Elsa admitted. She found it astonishing that this man, that anyone, didn't know who she was.

"I had rather urgent business in the Dreadlands. I didn't pay much mind to the goings-on in one kingdom, nor the rumors coming out of it afterward." Marius laughed lightly to himself. "Faraam's broken sword, I can see why they came after you."

* * *

He'd apologized rather profusely to them for his conduct afterward. And while Anna and Elsa had pressed him with questions about the Lion Knights, he'd been less than forthcoming. All he'd told them was that they'd once been a large order, a group of valiant warriors, celebrated defenders and slayers of monsters in ages long passed. Time and tragedy had reduced them to a small band of roving nomads, left only to fill their purses with mercenary work until they occasionally found some great beast from the old days, and put an end to it.

Though the mercenary work was admittedly secondary. They'd been ascribing to one true goal for a long time, as much as they were able to.

A goal of war with the Covenant.

* * *

"They call themselves the Covenant of the Dark Flame," Marius explained. "Founded by a group of religious fanatics centuries ago, at least. Their scriptures say that the true gods of ancient times, in an effort to maintain their fading power against a great darkness, tricked humans into sacrificing their souls to use as fuel. They were eventually killed by a rebellious, misguided warrior, and the source of their power was left to die out."

* * *

The Chosen stood in the pit of ash, watching as the giant, charred husk of the king of the gods approached, a enormous blazing sword in one hand, a bolt of lightning in the other. The king hurled the bolt of lightning, and the Chosen rolled beneath it, feeling its heat wash over their body. The king charged, sword raised high, and swung at the Chosen. The Chosen dove between the king's legs and scrambled to their feet, turning to drive the point of their sword through the back of the king's chest. The flaming sword dropped from the king's hand, the fire burning out as it reached the ashes. The Chosen tore their blade from the king's chest, letting the god's body drop before the fading flame at the center of the pit. The Chosen gazed at the flame, then turned and began their ascent out of the pit.

* * *

"In the wake of the gods' destruction, the most loyal of their followers formed the Covenant of the Dark Flame, and swore to destroy whatever might come to rule the age of man. That has led, in the centuries since, to turning the cult into a guild of magical assassins and soldiers who specialize in eliminating monarchs. Whether or not someone is paying them to." Marius gazed back at the balcony, at the city and people the Covenant had threatened to destroy. "So you can imagine why they'd be interested in you, a woman with command of the elements of winter. You'd be very useful to them."

**Okay, bit of an exposition dump, like I said. Also, to clarify where I'm drawing the Covenant's lore from: it's Dark Souls. And the Dark Souls 2 debut trailer.**

**What a thing to inject into a Disney property, eh? I'm saving the history of the Lion Knights (and why they're so horribly understaffed) for later in the story. Right now, the focus of both the story and characters is getting everyone up to speed on who the bad guys are… The bad guys being the dark-magic assassins who want to spread chaos and tear down civilization because civilization is a blasphemy. A blasphemy to the founders, anyway. Some of the "modern" ones have less fanatical motivations.**

**Also, in case that little action pseudo-flashback is confusing because a single person is constantly described in various forms of 'they', I intentionally didn't want to describe the human who killed the god-king by gender, so he or she could be… well a he or a she based on who you, the reader, want them to be.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Note: Quick shout-out to arslonga91; I'm not sure I've seen so many reviews in so little time before. I think you must have set some sort of record. Also, thanks for the tips on perspective and proper royalty titles. I'll do my best to take them into consideration (granted, one will be far easier to do than the other).**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize constructively. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 7

Hans was lying on his cot when he felt something stir within him. Something rather… improper for a man of his former status. He looked at the small, dirty bucket in the corner of his cell, and sighed. He waited a few minutes, to see if the feeling would subside, but it didn't. If anything, it got stronger.

Hans got up from his cot and made his way to his cell door.

"Guard!" Hans called through the bars, and waited for the ginger-haired man, Hans could only tell his hair color by his outlandishly large sideburns, to come over. "I dislike asking anything of you, considering my position, but I require use of more proper… facilities," Hans almost groaned aloud at his admission. "If you would be so kind as to allow it."

"You've got a bucket, your lordship." The guard scoffed.

"Yes, and I'll make sure the man who has to clean them out knows exactly whose fault it was that he had to deal with such a terrible mess today."

* * *

Hans tipped the seat back against the wall five minutes later, and squatted over the hole leading to the pipes. He thought, once, that he heard something _clink_ off the metal.

He really hoped he hadn't. It couldn't mean anything good if what was coming out of him could clink.

* * *

Hours later, the tiny gemstone, floating in the fjord near the palace, began to glow and pulse with an unearthly light. After several seconds, it exploded beneath the surface of the rather foul water.

After spending a minute floundering in the half-rancid waters, Daud heaved himself up onto the face of the small cliff the palace was built on. He took a few seconds to take in the light coating of filth he'd accumulated.

"Next time we use this method," Daud said, "We're not having it be swallowed."

"Would you rather we appear in the middle of our target's home after the carrier cuts it out, and be surrounded?" One of the Sisters asked.

"After so many times with this, I'm starting to think I might." Daud turned to regard the cliff and walls before him. "Dry yourselves, and then get ready to climb."

* * *

Anna felt a slight rustling of her sheets, and a little prod on her arm. She mumbled, and turned over. She assumed it was Kristoff, maybe trying to keep himself awake by amusing himself at her expense. He'd offered to stay with her tonight, though not in the way Elsa had teased him about after Marius and his people had left. He'd just brought in a comfortable chair, and done his best to stay awake and keep watch. If ruffling her sheets was how he kept himself up, she wouldn't-

A gloved hand roughly shook her shoulder. She slowly blinked to awake lucidity, and found herself gazing up at yet another mask of a Covenant assassin.

She gathered a breath to scream when he clamped his hand roughly over her mouth. She tried to kick up, hit him, but she… she couldn't. The whole of her body felt strangely numb, and though she tried as hard as she could to hit the man above her square in his face, she could barely make her arm lift off her bed.

"Unlike Mortemer, kiln rest him," the assassin over Anna said, holding up an empty syringe with his free hand. "I had the sense to take certain precautions before I woke you." He jerked his head over towards Kristoff's chair. Anna's eyes widened in terror. The ice harvester was being kept in his seat by two swords held against his throat. "Now. Are you going to somehow manage to present a problem for me, princess?"

Anna slowly shook her head, as much as she was able to.

* * *

Kristoff watched in horror as they dragged Anna's almost limp body off the bed. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to do something, but he couldn't…

He could, actually. It didn't matter what, just so long as he didn't let them take her without a fight. The only thing worse than being killed, he decided, was to live because he'd done nothing.

He thrust one elbow out on his left as he pushed hard with his right hand. He knocked the assassin on his left away, and pushed the sword on his right off his throat. He followed up by grabbing the assassin on his right, and…

He hadn't really thought this through.

Suddenly, he remembered. Marius had had his apothecary, Diomedes, put up wards around everyone's doors. If a door was opened by anything but the occupant or castle staff, who had all somehow been woven into the fabric of the wards beforehand, the Lion Knights would be alerted.

Kristoff threw the assassin he held into to the door as hard as he could.

Which actually turned out to be hard enough that the assassin broke the door clean off its hinges.

* * *

Anna watched, furiously helpless, as Kristoff threw one of the Covenant through her bedroom door. Then she watched in anguish as one of the other assassins grabbed him from behind and stabbed him in the side. She tried to scream, but between the hand still covering her mouth and whatever she'd been dosed with, she couldn't make it come out.

Then, a large spike of ice shot through her doorway, spearing Kristoff's attacker in the shoulder and pinning him to her wall.

* * *

Elsa charged through Anna's doorway, firing blasts of ice at all the Covenant she could see. She stopped to kneel down before Kristoff, who was kneeling on the floor, holding a bleeding wound on his side, before he frantically pointed over her shoulder.

She turned and saw one of them holding Anna in his arms. Her sister looked incredibly frightened and oddly, forcibly relaxed in terms of her body, like she couldn't do anything with it, even though she wanted to. Her gaze brightened as she looked at Elsa, then turned to terror as the assassin shoved her toward the window overlooking the courtyard. Anna disappeared in a burst of black smoke, and just as quickly reappeared in mid-air on the other side of the window. The assassin dove through the window, the pieces of glass blocking most of Elsa's blast of magic. Gazing through the beam of blue energy, she could see the assassin teleport, and thought she heard a weak scream from her sister cut off abruptly.

She quickly looked down the hall, and saw that guards and Lion Knights were storming down it. Satisfied that Kristoff would be in good hands, she ran for the window, and jumped, projecting a long road of ice in front her, giving her a path to walk across over the courtyard. She shifted her gaze to the assassin holding her sister below her, running through the courtyard and teleporting around guards. She projected another path of ice, this one curved. She leapt onto it and quickly slid down into the courtyard. Stumbling on her feet after a slightly awkward transition from slick ice to cobblestone, she ran after her sister, power curling off her hands.

* * *

Daud ran and blinked about as best he could, and he could practically feel the queen's gaze on his back, her presence drawing closer. He reached into one of his pouches, and withdrew the red, pulsating crystal with the void-black core. A smashing sound caught his attention, and he looked up to see Marius, General of what little remained of the Lion Knights, leap through a window. The knight rolled into the ground dozens of feet below him, the stone cracking beneath his frame. Daud crushed the crystal in his hand and hurled the powdery fragments into the air in front of him. A portal, framed in red, with a void-black center, appeared before him.

* * *

Marius rolled to his feet, and saw the Covenant assassin crush a portal crystal in his hand. He didn't have much time. He drew his sword and readied it with both hands. He drew his arms back as the assassin ran towards the portal. Marius brought his arms forward and hurled his blade with all his strength. The assassin shoved Anna towards the portal and leapt forward, dragging the oddly fight-less princess off the ground with him. The sword was almost on him now, it was about to-

The two of them pierced the edge of the portal, and disappeared with a flash of light. Marius' sword continued flying and buried itself hilt-deep into the wall as a huge blast of wintery power came from somewhere behind him and consumed the patio in front of where the portal had been.

The queen ran forward, and sank to her knees where her sister had vanished, snow and ice starting to whirl around her as tear began to roll down her face.

**Originally, Hans was going to being do exactly what the unnamed Sister of the Covenant suggested as an alternative, and cut that first teleporting crystal out of himself in a wild fit. **

** That seemed both impractical and way too dark. I felt I could/had to somehow make inadvertently being the mule for a 'remotely' activated teleportation crystal funny. Because the ratio of silly-to-serious in this story was getting a bit too tilted towards serious.**

** So instead, he unknowingly crapped it out of himself, and I got to make the bad guys get covered in feces. I have no idea what sort of plumbing (if any) to give the Frozen characters, because Disney fantasy timelines have become so finicky lately. Take Tangled. We're still stuck with crossbows, kings and queens, and old-school ships and whatnot, but frying pans are also clearly a common item. So, I'm saying that the similarly-timed Frozen, while it doesn't have toilets per se, does have a rudimentary system of plumbing. Castles in the Dark Ages just had really long chutes, so there's precedent.**

** Also, this has no bearing on anything, but I like to think of whom certain characters would be voiced by if they actually got voice actors. Daud would be voiced by Liam Neeson. Marius and Vitalion obviously by the same guys who did them in Ryse. Diomedes would be Keith Szarabajka (he's been in a lot of video games, and a couple recent movies (Argo is probably the most notable)). **


	8. Chapter 8

**Note: Quick overall shout-out: A Happy New Year to all you readers!**

**Not much to say beyond that.**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 8

They'd all gathered in the ballroom afterward. Marius, Vitalion, and a few key members of the Lion Knights. A bandaged Kristoff, Kai and Gerda, Olaf and Elsa. Elsa had secluded herself in a far corner, and tried her best to keep the sheet of ice radiating from her body under control. Olaf stood near her, his expression saying he wanted with every bit of himself to run up to her and hug her until she felt better, but he knew deep down she wouldn't. She was just so furious and scared for her sister.

Her thoughts where interrupted when Marius, who had been pacing around the few small tables set up in the room, slammed a fist down onto the nearest one.

"I'm a damnable fool." He said to himself.

Marius strode across the ballroom toward Elsa, his armored boots crunching on the ice.

"We all thought that you," he pointed a finger squarely at Elsa, "Were the one they were after. But they weren't. They were after her."

"You mean… you mean they were always here for Anna?" Elsa asked quietly, not understanding where Marius was going with this.

"Where have they always gone to first? Who did Mortemer demand come with him? Not just you, your majesty. He wanted both of you." Marius explained his logic at length.

"But it…" Elsa struggled to find the words. "It just doesn't make sense. You said it yourself, I'm the one they'd find useful. So why would they take her?"

Marius once again came improperly close to her, bracing his hands on the arms of her frozen chair.

"Let me ask you something, your majesty. A king and queen have themselves a little girl, one with an innate power over the elements. A level of power and control not seen since the Magi Lords." He quickly held up a hand to forestall the question Elsa opened her mouth to ask. "Incredibly powerful elemental mages who lived centuries ago. Not important. What is important is my next question:" He leaned back a bit. "The girl is born with a capacity for tremendous magical power. A few years later, she has a sister, who is in every respect of magic utterly useless. Does that seem like it would happen often? Two siblings, one with incredible powers, and one totally without?"

Elsa dragged her hands across her face at what Marius was implying.

"Are you saying that you think Anna might have… I don't know, dormant magical powers, General?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying. And I can only imagine the Covenant came to the same conclusion. They have ways to forcibly activate magical abilities in those whose gift is present, but not 'on'. And they also have ways to force those they take to see the world from their point of view."

"If it's any consolation," Diomedes called from across the ballroom as Elsa put a hand over her mouth in horror, "Your sister has enough strength and fight in her for ten men thrice her age. If any could ever outlast the Covenant's... re-educative processes, I'd say it would be her."

Elsa smiled lightly at the assurance the old apothecary provided, before Kristoff cut in.

"Not to rain on your detective parade here, but all we've figured out now, maybe, is why they took her. We still don't know where. And as far as I'm concerned, that's the only thing worth knowing."

Vitalion sighed, and received a quick nod from Marius.

"We actually do." The commander admitted. "There's only one place in all the world they would take her."

Elsa thrust herself out of her seat and strode towards the soldier. She was practically bumping chests with him, her face inches from his helmeted one.

"The Citadel," Vitalion said, heading off her question. "Our former Citadel, on Forossa."

* * *

Hans heard the lock on his door click, and the door itself was sliding open soon after. In the doorway, a tall knight, clad in ornate armor and green robes, stood holding a large bag on hand. In his other was a key.

"I'd imagine you've probably heard by now," The knight said without preamble. "But the queen's sister has been kidnapped. We, that is to say, the queen and her companions, as well as my people, are going to get her back." The knight gave Hans a quizzical look. "I've heard your story, Hans of the Southern Isles. I've also heard that you consorted with our enemies, and turned on them just as quickly when you saw what they had done to your family." He came in closer, and kneeled down before Hans' cot. "So tell me honestly, if you were out of this cell, what would you do in regards to them?"

Hans looked into the eyes of the knight, and realized exactly what he has was being asked. And what he would truly answer with.

"I'd find them. And I'd make them pay for what they did." He admitted softly.

"Without, I hope, discounting your own role?" The knight asked.

"Yes." Hans whispered. The single word nearly caught in his throat as he said it, admitted his part in what had happened to his family.

The knight stood up.

"I suggested to the queen that you might be helpful. She told me in no uncertain terms that she would not have you travel with her." The knight sighed. "Choosing who goes with her is her prerogative." Though Hans couldn't see the knight's face beneath the helmet, he got the distinct impression the knight was smiling. "However, she has no right to dictate who I allow to follow me."

The knight dropped the bag in the middle of the room. "If you truly mean what you've said, if you would seek justice and make amends for what you've done, my ships are docked in the port. We leave in an hour."

The knight held up the key to the chains binding Hans wrists. He looked around the room, and tossed it when he found an appropriate target.

The key clinked against the wall and plopped into the waste bucket.

* * *

Elsa shifted on the deck of the _Broken Sword_, the Fourteenth's flagship of their rather rudimentary fleet. They had about eight ships total, and only three were really built to fight at sea. She personally thought that it was fairly impressive, considering what Marius made it sound as the the Fourteenth was both the very last of the Lion Knights and terribly strapped for resources. She steadied herself as the ship's crew raised anchor and dropped the sails. The _Broken Sword_ began to slowly drift out of the harbor, when a loud shriek sounded from back on the docks. Elsa turned and saw a man clad in dirty white clothes and a grey hooded cloak leap over a few vendor stalls, knocking wares to the ground as he rushed toward the docks. Behind him were almost a dozen guards.

The man reached the edge of the dock and jumped off, flailing in midair for a few seconds before he crashed into the water. He quickly started swimming after the ships, and just barely managed to grab a protruding back-edge of the _Broken Sword_ before it picked up speed in earnest. The man slowly clambered up the back of the ship, and fell over the side of the rail onto the deck, panting.

"Glad to see you made it." Marius called, walking over from the bow of the ship to pull the man to his feet. Or more accurately, yank him. He yanked so forcefully, the man's hood dropped down, and Elsa could only stare in disbelief at the face beneath it.

Prince Hans.

* * *

Elsa dragged Marius down below decks after that, leaving Kristoff and Olaf to keep watch on Hans.

"I told you, General, I wouldn't travel with that man." Elsa was hesitant to even call Hans a man, after all he'd done and tried to do.

"As I told the man, you have every right to not want him along. But I have every right to allow whoever I choose to join my side of things." Marius explained, resting his hands on the small table between them.

Elsa slapped her palms down on the table, her shoulders shaking with suppressed fury. Ice began to spread across the tabletop.

"You know who he is? What he's done?"

"I know both of those, your majesty, and I don't particularly care. He might prove useful, so I'm bringing him." Marius said, shifting on his feet.

"There's more to it than that. I can tell. If you can't be honest with me General, perhaps I should find someone else to help me get my sister back."

Marius laughed harshly at that.

"There's no-one else who _could_ help you, your majesty. Few enough now who aren't the Lion Knights know where Forossa even is, and not a single one of them would dare to take you there to attack the Covenant." Marius leaned in closer, his helmeted face inches from hers. "Face it. You're stuck with us."

"Then at least tell me why. Truthfully." Elsa crossed her arms and fixed Marius with an frighteningly resolute expression. Elsa felt energy radiate from her body, and saw Marius' next breath leave a puff of mist in the suddenly chilled air.

"The man was used by people he didn't understand, and lost his family because of it. I may not agree with what he's done, but I know well how it feels to watch all you have torn from you forever. I know well the burning desire and fury that follows after, and I'm not about to deny a man the opportunity to have his justice."

Marius stepped away from the table and left the room.

**Word of warning to all: my next quarter of classes starts next week, and I have another story I've been neglecting and don't want to totally abandon.**

**As such, updates from the week after next (maybe) onward will be one or two over every other weekend. I'm honestly having a better time working on this, but I know from past experience that I shouldn't put a story on hold for too long (I tend to let them wither and rot away if I don't work on them somewhat regularly).**

**Also, sorry to disappoint a certain-named reviewer, but Marius and Elsa will probably not become a couple. To say anything more would spoil the story, but I have no plans to take things in that direction.**

**Also also, I'm more of a Iceburns guy than an OC/ guy.**

**You didn't think I had Hans escape just because I'm interested in reforming him, did you?**


	9. Chapter 9

**Note: Fear not, things will start actually happening again soon. We've just got one more chapter of fight flashbacks and exposition to get through.**

** This one, to be precise.**

** And maybe a chapter of character development, but that is something that can be more… flexibly placed.**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 9

Marius stood at the fore of the flagship, gazing at the rolling sea.

Arendelle was over a week behind them, and they were a few days out from Forossa itself. Marius reached down to his belt and slid the small medallion off of it, gazing at the metal lion head seated in his palm. It had been a gift from his father, given to him on the day he'd-

"Whatcha' doing?" A voice asked from behind, startling Marius so badly that the medallion went flying up into the air. Marius frantically grabbed it at for a few seconds, before nearly diving over the railing to grab the leather cord before the medallion fell into the ocean. Marius tied the medallion back around his belt and whirled around to spy the snowman the queen had insisted bringing with her.

"What do you want?" Marius sighed.

"What are you doing over here?" The snowman asked.

"Thinking." Marius turned back to face the ocean.

"About what?"

"The road before us."

Marius glanced back, and saw the snowman's expression become incredibly puzzled.

"But… we're on a boat. There aren't any roads we can even go on." The snowman said. "Well, I guess we _could_, but we wouldn't be able to get the boats off again. Not without a lot of guys with lots of rope, anyway."

Marius reached to rub his eyes in exasperation before he remembered he still had his helmet on.

"Is this something you needed?" He asked the snowman shortly.

"I was wondering where exactly we're going."

Marius couldn't believe what he was hearing. Their destination had been discussed and announced time and again.

"Our former citadel, on our old island home."

"Yeah, I got that." The snowman's expression shifted to slight disdain. "I do listen, you know. I'm just wondering why it's not yours anymore."

Marius took a second to marvel at the depth the snowman displayed, for a snowman, before he realized just what he was asking to know.

"It used to be ours, then the Covenant took it from us. What more do you want to know?"

"Maybe, how exactly it happened, what everyone did, where everyone else-"

Marius reached down and lifted the snowman's head off his body. He held it right in front of his face.

"I'd suggest not asking too deeply into such matters if you don't want to be tossed overboard. It's not something any of us prefer to think too much about."

Marius dropped the head back onto the body and walked off towards the cabins.

* * *

Olaf slumped dejectedly as Marius all but stormed off. He'd just wanted to learn a bit about the guys. Was that so wrong?

"Don't take it too personally." A voice said. Olaf turned to see Diomedes stand-slouching against the mast. "Marius has more reason than most of us to not want to have to revisit the fall. We all lost much, but Marius… he lost more than most." Diomedes sighed. "Our war with the Convenant had lasted long when they finally took the citadel. We had grown complacent, sure of our own strength and power. They had gathered to them allies; kings whose enemies they'd killed, more primitive tribes who they could sway with their fealties to ancient gods. They gathered these allies and set them against us, along with the best and worst of their ranks."

* * *

Leontus watched, stupefied, as Abaddon, grand master of the Covenant Embers, carved a bloody path through the First. The man was a gaint, clad in ancient, blackened armor contorted by demonic fire and battle scars. The man himself was a ruined form, what little flesh visible was charred and crumbling, the result of an ancient rite of the Embers, to follow in the footsteps of their gods' king, and give themselves to flames for power.

Abaddon swung one of his two greatswords. He held one in each hand, and both swords blazed with unearthly power of fire and lightning, cleaving effortlessly through armor and bone.

Galen, the First's chief apothecary, was sent sprawling to the ground, half his face burned away. Leontus charged, thrusting his blade for Abaddon's heart.

* * *

"Marius' grandfather, Leontus, had lead the First Company in his prime, and was one of the few of our order to reach an age where he was better suited to planning than fighting. Marius' father had died many years before, at the hand of Covenant proxies, leaving his brother to take command of the Knights."

* * *

Abaddon stood slowly from Leontus' body, and raised the severed head high into the air for all to see. Maximian, the Knights' leader, charged, screaming furiously, hacking his way through the troops around him to reach Abaddon.

He fell to floor minutes later, his torso cleaved open, sword sliding from his hands. Abaddon stood, armor rent, covered in cuts and stab wounds but somehow alive.

* * *

"We were broken, leaderless. Lambs before the slaughter. That is when something miraculous happened."

* * *

Marius charged through the fleeing Knights, and rushed the enormous figure of the Ember grand master. A swipe of one of the Ember's fell swords sent Marius' shield, split and melting, spiraling away from his arm. Another blow shattered his blade into a thousand white-hot fragments that dug into Marius' armor and flesh.

Marius dove between Abaddon's legs, his hands scrabbling at his uncle's corpse, reaching for his blade. He brought the sword up and around with blinding, furious speed as Abaddon whirled around, one sword swinging for Marius' head.

Marius swung against the sword, and knocked it back. He cut at Abaddon's chest, leaving a deep gash. Abaddon brought his right sword around in a slicing blow that Marius ducked.

Abaddon quickly whipped his other blade up into Marius, who just barely managed to get his sword up in time to block. The blow lifted him off his feet and sent him flying backwards. Abaddon charged and swung with his right sword, aiming to take Marius' head off. Marius scrambled to his knees and swung with his blade as fast and hard as he could.

Marius hit home first, and sent Abaddon's right arm sailing through the air. The Ember stepped back, then followed through with his one remaining arm. Marius ducked beneath his swing, and spun on his feet, chopping down, taking his sword through chain mail, flesh, bone, and spearing the blade into the floor beneath.

Abaddon stepped back, screaming in pain and disbelief, and it was if all the war around the two had suddenly stopped. As though all present were so astounded by what they saw they forgot what they were doing and where they were.

Marius stepped forward and plunged his sword into Abaddon's stomach, dragging the longsword up through the Ember's torso, twisting the blade when he reached the fell warrior's neck. He yanked the blade out, and spun, letting his momentum carry the blade through Abaddon's neck.

* * *

"We rallied after that," Diomedes continued, gazing off at the sea as Olaf's expression grew more and more astounded. "Drove back the Covenant and their allies. But Marius alone, of all of us, knew they would be back. So he made the only choice he could. The hardest he ever had to make."

* * *

Marius stood before the assembled remains of the Lion Knights. Barely six full Companies remained in number, just under half the order. Marius could feel the anger seething within the knights, taste their desire for vengeance.

He was about to put a damper on such thoughts.

"Attention, all of you." He yelled, and the bustle and chatter stopped suddenly. Marius wasn't at all used to the respect he was now receiving. He'd served as Vitalion's right hand for years, but after what he'd done to Abaddon, and the death of Maximian, it seemed the whole of the order looked to him.

"I know." Marius said simply. "I know what it is every one of you feels right now. I know the burning anger in your hearts, the drive to find the ones responsible for all those you have lost and put them to the sword. I know every one of us would stay here and see their friends and family avenged."

Marius shook his head sadly. "Years ago, I embarked upon a quest of vengeance, a bloody road that took years for me to see its end. And when I arrived there, I discovered a strange truth; vengeance is of little use to the world. And it is the world that we are bound to protect."

Marius' voice was rising now, his hands clenching into fists. "I stand here, in once hallowed halls littered with the bodies of my fellow knights, and I know what I must do to honor their sacrifice. And it is not to throw my life away in pursuit of vengeance when their killers come for me again. I intend continue the work of the Lion Knights. I will defend; I will protect. I will fight the encroaching darkness wherever I may find it. I will go, out into the world, and live, that I might see this work continued."

Marius drew his sword. "I ask not one of you follow me by order. Those of you who would stay and have justice for the dead, do so with my blessing. Those who would see the Lion Knights remain, see the world continue with our protection, its foes still held at bay by us, join me." Marius drove his sword into the floor. "The line has been drawn. Let it be said; any who cross or stay will not be judged for the path they choose to walk."

The first movement came from the remnants of the Twelfth. Vitalion, and all those of the Twlefth who still lived, crossed the line of the blade. Stilicho and half of the remaining Seventh were next, followed by Tarkus and all of the Thirteenth. What few of the First that were alive came after, followed by the increments of the Fourth and all of the Second. What was left of the Fifth followed the Second, and no more came after.

* * *

"Thus, was the Fourteenth Company of the Lion Knights formed, from those survivors who felt they still had something yet to do. Those who remained fought to their last, and the remains of the citadel has been in the hands of the Covenant ever since, used to re-educate and train new members. The final insult to their old enemies."

** Okay, I was **_**very**_** influenced by The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey where the backstory of the Fourteenth and fall of the citadel is concerned.**

** Sue me. But not really, because there's no way in hell I could pay even a twentieth of a tenth of the legal fees.**

** Plus, there's a reason this chapter is backstory and kickass fight scenes and inspirational speeches. The next one's going to be… rather really dark.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Note: Sorry in advance for how incredibly dark this is.**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 10

A strange, horrible tedium had developed over the last week. Anna would sit in her dank, dark cell, someone would eventually slip a tray of food beneath a slot in the bottom. She'd eat, pass out, and wake up in another room, where she was bombarded with information that somehow managed to glaze over her while it was told to her. She wasn't quite sure what that all was, but what she retained was all things she had no interest in. Ideas of power, dominance, culling, and the disease of society. She'd once tried refusing food, and an Acolyte had simply entered and shoved a needle in her arm which had much the same effect.

Sitting on her cot, she devised a plan.

* * *

Cordas gazed through the bars, at the scattered food and not a hint of the captive princess. He noticed the tiny mirror he'd always said ought to be removed was shattered, and there was an odd stain…

He quickly threw open the door and ran-

The serving tray came up from the opposite side of the doorframe and smashed into his face.

* * *

Anna gave the Acolyte a few more whacks for good measure, then checked his pockets. She found a key ring, and slid a small dagger off the man's belt. If only he'd had a map. But she knew she'd figure something out.

* * *

Daud gazed at the burning wreck of a small ship from the infirmary full of men clutching bruised faces, cut arms and crushed unmentionables, and had to shake his head in wonderment. One little princess, who hadn't even gone through the process of Awakening, out of her cell with nothing to start but a key ring, a dagger, and hours to wander carefully. She'd found a great deal more since; almost a dozen of their people were in bed with terribly painful wounds, and they were rushing to keep a fire from spreading across the docks. Among other things.

What might she do when she had her powers? Daud was fairly certain the usual rhetoric and methods wouldn't work in keeping her under control. Solstice might convince the girl, but she was far away, training and strategizing in the Monastery. He'd have to make do with who and what he had on hand.

"Prepare the pit." He said. "And tell Galmorn to be prepared to conduct an Awakening in three days' time. Make sure to stipulate that this particular subject is needed alive and sane."

* * *

Anna was roughly roused the morning following her attempted escape, and the first thing they did was throw a bag over her head. She was lead down several twisting, turning halls, before she was roughly forced to her knees and the bag was removed. Anna gazed for second a gaping hole in the floor before she was shoved in the back and fell down into it. There was a loud creaking and banging as a metal cover was thrown down over the hole.

"Leave." She faintly heard a voice say. She recognized it. It was the man who took her from the palace. She gazed up through the few holes in the cover, and saw him standing on it. "If it is any consolation, I'm sorry about what must come next. But, distasteful as I find this, I also recognize its necessity. We can't very well let someone like you still think escaping is a good idea, especially after you undergo the Awakening." The man sighed. "Regardless, I'm sorry for what you're about to go through. I can only hope you come out of there with what little of yourself you can salvage."

He dropped a tiny, burning blue pellet down through one of the holes, and walked away.

* * *

The pellet was just below eye level when it exploded, and several shards struck her cheek. The force of the explosion blasted her back against the wall of the pit, and she shut hey eyes against the pain. She felt a small heat light itself in the pit, and quickly grow. She opened her eyes and saw a raging torrent of blue fire sweep across the pit and engulf her. It hurt, burned like nothing she'd ever felt, for a few seconds, before the flames withdrew around her back, leaving her… somewhere else.

She wasn't in the pit any longer. She was somewhere else. Some giant, empty black void of nothingness. She walked through it, wondering just what was happening, when she heard something.

The clopping of hooves, and the dragging of wood. She turned and saw Kristoff, on the sled she gave him, loaded with ice, Sven pulling while munching happily on a carrot. The void around her slowly transformed into a snow-covered mountainside, late at night. She had no idea how this was possible, but she didn't quite care the moment. She ran towards Kristoff and Sven when a sound stopped her.

A low, yet piercing growl.

A wolf burst out of the forest and leapt up, catching Kristoff's arm in its jaws and dragging him off of the sled. Sven somehow shook the reins off and kicked the wolf clean off his friend. Five more charged from the trees behind him and dragged the reindeer to the ground, while another three pounced on Kristoff.

"NO!" Anna screamed and ran forward, scrabbling at the ground for a stick, or a rock. Anything that would help her fight off the wolves. She charged towards the one on top of Kristoff, and brought the rock she'd grabbed down on its head.

But the rock passed through the wolf, and the ice cutter beneath it. Everything around her slowly dissolved into the void, and she was left on her hands and knees, wracked with terror over what she'd just seen. The worst part was, she'd seen all this before. She'd had nightmares about exactly that.

* * *

The blackness beneath her shifted and changed again. She was standing on ice, in the middle of a slowly calming blizzard, a frozen ship visible on her right. She knew this. This was the fjord in Arandelle. But it was frozen. And that meant…

She turned, and saw Elsa, lying on her knees in anguish, Hans standing behind her, sword raised.

Anna ran forward, intending to stop the prince, to do anything she had to to stop…

They were getting farther away the closer she tried to come. Never so far that she couldn't see, in terrible detail, what was happening, but far enough that she could never reach them. The sword descended in agonizing slowness. She seemed to be getting closer now, at an infinitesimal rate, but closer nonetheless. The sword was almost on Elsa, Anna a hairsbreadth away from seizing Hans-

Ice shot up around her body and she froze solid. She couldn't move, but she was horribly aware. She could still see perfectly. See the sword pass through Elsa's…

The ice around her shattered and she collapsed, screaming in anguish as the world around her dissolved into the void once more. She laid on the floor, sobbing softly, until she felt a cold, soft hand brush against her cheek. She looked up, gasping her sobs out, and suddenly her spirits lifted.

Elsa stood before her, smiling warmly and holding out her hand.

Anna shot up to her feet and threw her arms around her sister. Elsa returned the hug gladly as Anna let out a joyful scream into her shoulder. They slowly pulled away, still keeping a grasp on each others hands.

And it was then Anna noticed something seemed… wrong. Elsa felt cold. Unnaturally cold, even for Elsa. Her eyes, especially her irises, seemed… hard. Almost reflective, like glass.

Or ice.

Anna looked down at the hands she held. A light sheen of ice was growing over them. Elsa's smile took on a slightly sadder appearance, as the world around them resolved into the palace courtyard in the middle of winter, a snowy air blowing through it. Elsa slowly began to pull away.

"Esla?" Anna asked fearfully as the sheen of ice crept up her sister's face and hair. Elsa released one of her hands, and the snow-filled winds grew in intensity. Elsa's released hand was caught in the winds, and as Anna watched, the fingers of the hand slowly grew incredibly blue and clear. They turned to solid ice.

"Elsa, no!" Anna screamed. Elsa released her other hand, and the winds grew all the greater, nearly blotting out Anna's view of her sister as more and more of her began to turn to ice. The same sad smile was on her lips. She backed away, ever so slowly. Anna tried to force her way through the now gale-force snowy winds to reach her sister, who she could see was nearly entirely turned to solid ice.

She reached out just as the last bits of her sister were consumed by ice. Freezing tears began to roll down her face as she grazed her sister's frozen cheek.

Elsa's form cracked and exploded into a thousand fragments that melted away into a billion snowflakes before they were swept away on the winds. Anna had the distinct impression that she heard a softly whispered 'goodbye' from the snow that whirled around her.

"ELSA!"

* * *

She'd fallen to her back, sobbing and clutching her shoulders and squeezing her eyes shut, praying that this nightmare would end.

She opened her eyes to the sight of Hans, leering over her in her bed. She screamed and Kristoff was suddenly there, charging through the door and tearing the former prince off and throwing him into the nearest wall. He charged the prince when Hans reached into his belt and thrust his hand out with lightning speed. Kristoff stumbled back and sank to the floor, a knife buried in his chest.

Hans approached her again and wrapped his hands around her throat.

* * *

Anna forced herself off of her bed and out of Hans whirling around into-

Elsa's bedroom door. She slammed into and fell through the threshold as the door gave way. She picked herself up off the floor and saw…

Kristoff lay shirtless in Elsa's bed, his bottom half beneath the covers. A pale hand ran through his hair, a content smile on his sleeping face.

* * *

Anna whirled around and through the door's threshold again and found herself standing in the middle of Elsa's ice palace. But it wasn't the palace she'd seen. This was dark as night, the walls glowing with an unearthly red power, spikes extending from the walls and ceiling, the ice itself a blue so deep and dark it was nearly black.

Anna turned to the sound of doors opening, and saw Elsa storm through, her ice dress reflecting the darker colors of her palace, the tiny crystals glowing like red stars. Her face was… alien. Terrible pride, fury, sadism, and a hundred other things Anna knew Elsa would never feel, yet seemed horribly suited to this new her burned on her sister's face.

"Elsa, what's-" Anna began to ask fearfully. She was interrupted as Elsa quickly formed a ball of black ice in one hand and launched it into Anna's chest, blasting her off her feet and sending her skidding on the slick floor. "Elsa, please-" Anna tried to say, gasping against the incredible pain in her chest.

Elsa conjured a large block of ice, hovering in the far end of the room, and sent in flying, slamming into Anna's head and sending her tumbling down the steps. Elsa fired bursts of magic into the steps as Anna fell, causing edges to leap up and hit her, or grow jagged and cut her. Anna slowly crawled to the center of the room, and got unsteadily to her feet.

Elsa walked to the edge of the upper floor and waved her hand contemptuously, creating a floating, rotating dais of ice that she stepped on and lowered to the floor below.

"Elsa," Anna said fearfully as her sister slowly approached her. "What's happened to you?"

Elsa replied with a smile that all but said 'You deluded, simple fool.' She raised her hands and released a torrent of snow and sleet and hail, directing it all at Anna, who could face it only for a few seconds before she had to turn her back to it. She could feel Elsa walk closer as the storm grew fiercer around her, feel the sadistic smirk on her sister's face. She curled her right hand into a fist, and leapt up, aiming a powerful punch.

Elsa reached up with one hand, a layer of black ice growing over it, and caught Anna's punch. Anna felt her knuckles crack against the ice coating, and tried to pull her hand out of Elsa's grip, but she couldn't. A wicked smile growing on her face, Elsa slowly curled her fingers around Anna's fist, her grip growing tighter, applying more and more pressure to Anna's already weakened fingers. Anna was gasping in pain when Elsa suddenly clenched her hand into a fist, crushing Anna's hand between her ice-covered fingers.

Anna screamed in agony and dropped to her knees as Elsa threw her hand out of her grasp and turned around. As Anna held her broken hand and cried furious tears onto the floor, she looked back up at her sister. Magical power glowed in Elsa's palm, and a long, jagged piece of ice grew from her hand. She curled her fingers around it as the magic faded, and turned back Anna.

Elsa seized Anna by her collar and dragged her up, holding her several inches above the floor. She waved the jagged icicle in front of Anna's face before she drew it back and plunged it into Anna's chest. Anna gasped as the sharp point drove through her and just barely poked against her heart before Elsa yanked against the icicle, breaking off the rest, but leaving most of it embedded inside Anna.

Elsa dropped Anna to the floor and reached a hand out, magic energy glowing between her fingers. Anna could feel an inhuman cold grow within her from the icicle, and slowly spread through her. Raising her unbroken hand, she could see her fingers freezing before her eyes.

She cast one last terrified, sorry, forgiving look at her sister's savagely smiling face before she froze completely solid.

**Okay, yeah. It won't get this bad again, I swear. Well, it probably won't. Okay, I make no ironcald promises. **

**This was both much longer, and a much quicker update than usual. But I'm not too sure if I'll be updating next week (cause classes start on Monday) and I didn't want to consign the hallucination to two separate chapters. Chapters also (unless I really have good thing that I don't want to split going, like the hallucination) won't stay at this length. We'll stay at around 1,800 words per chapter, usually. Cause 1,800 is easier on all of us.**

**I fear I must admit, Evil Elsa was a guilty joy to write.**

**Also, a word on the actual schedule. I'm revising my previous statement; I'll be devoting myself more or less fully to this story during my forthcoming quarter, so I can get it finished in as timely a manner as possible. I don't think working on two stories at once (or in quick succession of each other) benefits either work.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Note: Hey! Because of the utterly unholy amount of snow Chicago has been getting creamed with all day, classes tomorrow were cancelled! So here's another chapter in celebration. Also, by-note: Galmorn will be introduced here. He'd be voiced by David Tenant (of Tenth Doctor Doctor Who fame). **

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 11

Anna wasn't sure how long she remained in the pit after the twisted vision of Elsa faded, but she wasn't sure of much after what she'd seen. All she knew was, she was curled in a ball at the bottom of the pit for what seemed like hours and hours before she fell into something akin to sleep. She woke up on the cot in her cell.

Her existence for the next day was fairly uneventful. By her standards, anyway. She simply lay in her bed, and occasionally picked at the food that was slid under the door. She noticed that guards weren't coming in with syringes when she didn't eat much, nor was she carted off to another room for more sessions she never listened to. That was all fine by her. It gave her time to think.

She knew that what she'd seen in the pit had to be one long hallucination. There was no doubt. And while the events themselves had been horribly disturbing, it wasn't those that left the deepest scars; that kept her up at night wondering, searching herself.

Nearly everything she'd seen had been drawn from her own anxieties, her own fears. She could recognize that now. Something terrible happening to Kristoff on the job; her failing to save Elsa from Hans; Elsa becoming consumed her powers and leaving Anna behind; Hans returning, somehow, and killing her; and then there were the more… well, even more unrealistic possibilities. Her finding Kristoff with Elsa, Elsa becoming some monstrous, twisted, evil version of herself.

All of those things, those fears, those possibilities, had somehow occurred to her at one point or another in the months since the coronation. And that was the thing about her experience in the pit that left her most unmanned. Everything she'd been shown had been dredged up from within her, and simply magnified.

What did that tell her about herself?

* * *

Two days after she'd woken up her cell, the door slid open, and an Acolyte walked in, holding a pair of shackles. Anna, still recovering from her experience in the pit, from what it had forced her to see about herself, didn't resist as the Acolyte slapped them on her wrists. He, and it was rather clearly a he, was admittedly gentle about it, though. He held up another sack and gave an apologetic twist of his head, before he reached up to slide it over Anna's head as she gave him an sad, understanding smile.

* * *

The bag came off, and Anna was gazing at probably the strangest place she'd ever seen besides Elsa's ice palace. Jars containing whirling clouds and bolts of colored energy lined shelves that lined the walls all the way up to the ceiling. Other jars contained icky-looking fluids, and even more off-putting specimens and objects sunk in the fluids.

Sitting in one corner was a device with a ball of lightning at its center, brass bands holding circular crystals whirling around the crackling, warping sphere at blinding speeds. There were at least half a dozen other devices as outlandish and utterly magical. One in particular, a large green crystal held in place by several black iron pylons, with a large metal needle pointing a metal chair with leather straps, caught her eye. She shuddered and looked away.

On an incredibly cluttered desk, there was a obsidian cage containing a bird with red and gold plumage. A sphere of energy was shooting up around the cage from a small device beneath it, and the bird seemed to grow older as Anna watched, feathers falling to floor and face growing wrinkled before it exploded into flames and burned into a pile of ash.

Anna covered her mouth at the sight, before a tiny baby bird's head poked out of the ash pile. Within almost a minute, a far older bird was hopping out of the ashes, shaking them off his slowly growing red and gold plumage.

"Archimedes!" A voice cried out from behind her.

Anna twisted her neck to see a man who looked as outlandish and eccentric as the room around her came running in through another door. He was clad in a dirty white smock, with muddy brown gloves and greasy, brown but graying hair running every which way out into the air, as though the man rarely bothered to comb or wash it. The bottom half of his face was covered in a scruffy, uneven stubble. A set of copper goggles containing hundreds of various filters hung on his brow, and incredibly dirty glasses ran over expressive purple eyes.

The man ran to the desk and fiddled with the device beneath the bird cage, the sphere of energy glowing briefly, the bird inside the cage aging a few more years in as many seconds before the man twisted a knob and the device sucked the sphere back into itself.

"Galmorn, you remember-" The Acolyte holding Anna said.

"Corbas, I really must now insist that no-one else have keys to my lab!" The man said, opening the door of the cage and petting the bird, that Anna now suspect was a phoenix. "I am becoming utterly convinced that some of the new recruits are sneaking into my lab after hours and tampering with my devices! In fact, probably better if no duplicate keys exist!" The man was screeching now, his voice climbing to an incredulous, and somewhat hilarious, pitch.

"Galmorn-" The Acolyte tried again.

"I don't mind them destroying things like dragon eyes, or dumping my collection of preserved werewolf fetuses onto the floor, nor, I'm fairly certain, drinking the bottled starlight, but I draw the line at toying with Archimedes! Kiln knows how many times the poor girl has died and rebirthed herself already!"

"Galmorn!" Corbas yelled, breaking the man's concentration and ranting. "You were instructed to prepare for an Awakening today. Have you?"

"Yes, yes, yes. I have." Galmorn said, his tone indicating that he would like nothing more than to be done with it so he could get back to more important things.

Galmorn stroked the underside of Archimedes' neck, then shut the cage and turned to Corbas, looking blankly. "Well… where are they?" Galmorn asked.

"Where is who?" Corbas replied, confused.

"The subject!" Galmorn replied exasperatedly. "Where is the subject?!"

Corbas jerked Anna's shoulder, and a look of comprehension dawned on Galmorn, who seemed to suddenly pop into existence right in front of Anna's face, a look of intense interest on his face. He dropped the goggles over his glasses, and twisted several knobs, a one eyepiece extending in and out rapidly. He then rapidly clicked a switch, and dozens of colored lens dropped in front of the eyepiece, one after the other.

Anna just barely managed to stifle a giggle. She couldn't help herself. The man was so silly, so energetic. She felt that, if they'd met anywhere else, she'd have liked him. She realized that perhaps, she still did, despite the surroundings.

"Oh, yes." Galmorn said to himself, with relish. "Oh, I see that I was right. My hypothesis was-"

"I seem to recall Fabius was incredibly dubious, Galmorn. We've risked quite a lot on your hunch."

Galmorn scoffed. "Well, of course Fabius would be dismissive of anything I put forth. He's always had it out for me, the petty, fanatical, psychotic little…" Galmorn walked up to the green crystal held between the iron pylons and fiddled with a device just beneath the crystal, mumbling angrily under his breath. "Strap her in." Galmorn eventually said, before going back to his mumbling.

* * *

Anna was strapped into the iron chair by Corbas, who took a moment to check that the straps were totally secure before he quickly walked to the door and went through it. Anna was fairly certain she heard him bolt it shut on the other side.

"Don't mind him." Galmorn said cheerfully, suddenly popping up in front of her again. "Just the usual precautions. Forcibly activating potential magical energies can be an exciting process. And occasionally cause some _in_substantial property damage." He gave Anna few good natured pats on her cheek. "Y'know, I'm a little surprised at you. Way I heard it, you had a good deal of fire in you, what with that mess at the port." He looked down at the floor quizzically, before looking back up, his expression joyful. "Hey, maybe by the end of this, that fire will be a bit more literal, yeah?" Anna couldn't help but smile at the man's exuberance and charm, even if this smile was an incredibly nervous one.

Galmorn went back to check the device beneath the crystal, he tinkered for a few seconds before he sighed and stood back up from it. His face was now tight and drawn, a profound sadness on it.

"In all seriousness, I'm sorry." He said. "I've seen far too many sent to me right from the pit, and I can tell them apart from the ones who are just sent to me." He sighed angrily. "I wish every time they'll see sense one day and get rid of that stupid practice. And I wish every day that Fabius and I had never cracked the compound for that damn pellet." He looked so angry, so defeat and disgusted with himself that Anna desperately wanted to reach out and hug him, maybe say something.

But she couldn't reach out, and she had no idea what to say. So she simply gave him a sorry, forgiving look that he clearly appreciated.

"Anyway!" He yelled, his exuberance coming back. "To the matter at hand." He grabbed a syringe full of green liquid off a copper tray and ran back to Anna, sliding into her arm with an apologetic smile and pushing the liquid through the needle. Anna let out a breath as she felt a strange, but not unpleasant pins-and-needles feeling spread through her.

"That wasn't so bad." She said.

"That was the prep elixir."

Anna's face fell.

* * *

Galmorn ran back to the device beneath the crystal. He fiddled with it a bit more, then looked back up at Anna.

"Now," He said carefully. "Everyone reacts a little differently, but they've all agreed that the process is a tad unpleasant. The degree apparently varies, but if, by some chance, it's ever-so-slightly horribly excruciating, could you do me a favor and try to keep the screaming to a minimum?" Galmorn jerked a thumb back at his phoenix's cage, the bird itself now flying lazily around the room up in the rafters. "Archimedes can't stand screaming, and I can't stand to see her upset." He took Anna's wide-eyed stare as confirmation. "Great! Now, let's get it started!"

He gave the device beneath the crystal a kick. A beam of energy shot up into the crystal, which began to glow and radiate tiny streams of green lightning. The needle connected to the crystal began to glow, as though it was being held in the middle of a roaring flame.

A beam of energy shot out of the needle and struck Anna in the chest. She gasped at the force before she blacked out.

* * *

Anna woke up on a small cot, still in the lab, Galmorn's eager face looming over her.

"You were great, case you were wondering. Not a peep out of your. Have you been hit with magic energy before?" His face mellowed at Anna's expression. "Sore topic, I got it. Won't bring it up again." He shifted back into his giddiness. "But, come on, get up. We've got to see what you can do!"

Galmorn practically dragged her to her feet. She could see Corbas standing off in a corner, looking fairly grim. Or as grim as she could tell, since she couldn't see his face beneath his mask. She briefly reflected on the fact that she didn't feel any different. Maybe a bit like half her body was asleep, but not what she would have expected if she'd suddenly gained magical powers.

"Come on, then! Try something!" Galmorn cried.

Anna held her hands out in front of her, and concentrated, trying to reach within her and make something happen.

But nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. No glow, no little burst of light, not even a little spark of magic.

"If I might offer a bit of advice;" Galmorn said, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Don't try and force it, and don't try and hold it back. Just let it come, and let it go."

Anna nodded and simply held out a hand, waiting to feel something, for whatever was supposed to happen, happen, embracing what she felt had to happen. She shut her eyes, and tried to let whatever she assumed she ought to feel or do happen.

But nothing came. Nothing happened.

"I… I can't." Anna finally said. Galmorn's expression became utterly crestfallen, and Corbas shifted uneasily on his feet.

"But… that's not possible. Your Potential, the ritual, everything was done exactly as it should have, you were…" Galmorn was at a loss for words.

Corbas started forward, reaching for the sword belted at his waist.

"What. Do you. Think. You're. Doing?" Galmorn hissed furiously as he suddenly popped in front of Corbas' face.

"You know how this works, Galmorn. If they fail to display any aptitude after the Awakening…" He gave Anna what appeared to be a sad look, but she couldn't ignore what he was saying, or the sword he was holding.

"I'm not about to let you-" Corbas shoved Galmorn back against his desk.

Anna's hand moved of its own accord, as though she didn't have to think about what she was doing. She wasn't even thinking, she realized. A ball of green energy shot out of her palm and struck the floor between Corbas' feet. For a second, nothing happened.

A mass of green vines exploded out of the bricks of the floor, shooting high into the air at a frightening speed, wrapping around Corbas and slamming him into the ceiling.

Galmorn pulled himself off his desk and gazed in wonderment at the vines now creeping across the floor and ceiling, flowers beginning to bud and bloom across their length.

"Oh, now that is absolutely… _fantastic._"

**Well, so much for the 1,800 word limit. Although this does technically count as one of those times I had a good thing going and just wanted to keep everything in one chapter. And I wasn't going to hold the magic reveal for another update. That would just be cruel. I save cliffhangers for when they really serve the flow of story. A cliffhanger concerning Anna's powers would not serve the flow.**

** Bit of a developmental insight: Galmorn as I originally conceived him was as far from Galmorn now as is possible to be. He was disfigured, he was sadistic, he was an evil dark alchemist, and he wouldn't have been voiced by David Tenant (he'd have been voiced by Mark Hamill doing a less mirthy Joker). But I felt that, especially after that last chapter, the story needed something a little light and silly. So Galmorn became an eccentric, kooky good-natured mad-scientist/magician who really only works for the bad guys because they'll let him do all the crazy experiments he wants so long as he also occasionally does what they want him to.**

** Also, surprise surprise! Anna doesn't have fire powers. She has nature powers instead. I'm personally far less in favor of Anna having fire magic. I get that it's the polar counterpoint to ice magic, but fire never really struck me as being… Anna. But maybe that's just me.**

** On another topic/shout-out, if you want to read an absolute fantastic "Anna has nature magic" fic, go read "Idun" by A. Kingsleigh. It's near (or at) the very back of the Frozen section and is completely worth your time.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Note: I'm going to admit it: I really don't quite know how I'd depict the siege of the citadel by the Lion Knights… so I'm taking a different route with how I'm doing things. Also, feels-tip: listen to On the Doorstep of The Hobbit Desolation of Smaug from the six-minute mark when reading the bit with Marius, if at all possible.**

**Quick shout-outs: LaraAelric- Anna has totally not given up! Not yet anyway. I guess I wasn't getting that idea across properly (Corbas was sorry for what he had to do to her, and she was understanding of that fact).**

**ShadowWolf117- Just… thanks. Knowing you've enjoyed this so, that I've had that much impact (or any impact, really) is just… thank you, so very much.**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 12

Daud slumped across his desk, weary from the events of the last few days. The princess had had her powers activated, and had quickly made another escape attempt. She'd come far closer but had been stopped dead upon running afoul of the transport detachment. Those at the Citadel were still dealing with the aftermath, hacking away at magical roots and vines, trying to extract fellows from giant, swallowing beds of flowers. The girl was in far more capable hands than his now, he assured himself. Or at least far less forgiving ones, until she reached Solstice's care.

Daud wondered when he'd finally drift to sleep, when his thoughts would stop running beyond his control. He'd been doing this duty, preparing new initiates, for a long time. He'd taken dozens, maybe nearly hundreds of people for the Covenant of the Dark Flame, and more than a few of those had ended up in the pit during their time with him. Some of them had even gone in more than once. And he'd preformed this duty for so long with barely a second thought.

So why, then, was this one, the princess of Arendelle, haunting his waking hours? Why, when he had stood just beyond the edge of the pit, could he barely stand to hear her cries? Why did he feel such a intense pity for the young woman, when he'd brought in and done far worse to far younger?

Why? It was the question that ate away at him. And he knew he would have no peace of mind, nor rest, until he could answer it.

* * *

Marius gazed at the ruins of Forossa, far off in the distance, through a spyglass. Just beyond the destroyed island-town, he knew, lay the Citadel. The ancient fortress of the Lion Knights, since the days the Covenant's gods came to power, perhaps even before that. Heroes and legends had walked and lived within it.

Marius knew the place like few others. He could tell the rooms by the sight of their stones alone, know where he was by the grains of wood in the steps. He'd won a great amount of coins from his friends in a bet on just such a boast when he'd been far younger than he was.

He'd run and played through the Citadel's halls as a child. He'd trained to become a ferocious warrior in its courtyards as a young man. He'd been knighted within its antechamber, and had lived the victories and defeats of himself and his fellow warriors as a grown man.

The Citadel was his home, more than any place in all the world.

And now, he would have to order those who followed him to lay siege to it. The sadness that gripped him was greater and more profound than any he had ever felt before.

* * *

Elsa sat in the hold, passing a whirling burst of snow between her fingers and hands, thinking. She thought of Anna, alone in the hands of mad, magical assassins who wanted to turn her into a weapon. She thought of her kingdom, that she'd left so suddenly to chase after her sister. She though of the strange, yet valiant bunch of men she'd placed all her hopes with.

She thought of Hans.

She'd done her best on the trip to avoid any and all contact with the man, never looking at him, never responding beyond a few words if he said anything to her, which he hadn't done much of. She'd made sure there was at least a room of space between the two of them at all times. Until the night before.

* * *

She'd gone out on the deck well after everyone had turned in, and just stood at the bow, looking at the sea. She'd always been slightly distrustful of ships and sailing after her parents' deaths, but she'd jumped on the Lion Knights' meager fleet without a second thought.

That fear, that distrust of the sea and ships and all things to do with them, came back to her then. She carefully breathed in and out as slowly as she could, trying to calm her raging mind and heart, keep the small circle of frost that had grown around her feet from spreading any further.

"Holding in sea sickness?" A voice behind her asked, startling her so badly the frost beneath her feet shot up into the air, transforming into snow. Hans smirked, good-naturedly, at the display and the slightly embarrassed queen before her inclined his head in apology.

"What do you want?" She asked shortly.

"I've been coming up here, each night. Taking things in. The view of the sky from a ship is nothing like the view from the middle of the isles." He pointed up, at the hundreds of stars shining above them. "There, there are so many lanterns and torches and buildings and flags blotting everything out." He spread his arms and turned in a wide circle. "But out here, there's nothing but the world. I've been thinking, maybe I ought to get into the ship business when this is all over."

Elsa couldn't help but smirk at the mental image of Hans at the wheel of a ship before she remember that she was actually carrying a conversation with him, and clamped down on herself.

Hans could clearly see this and sighed lightly.

"I know that you probably don't care for anything I have to say-" he started.

"Too right." Elsa muttered to herself.

"And I know that there's nothing I can do to make up for what I tried to do to you and Anna… but for whatever it's worth, I'm sorry." He sounded… genuine. Honest. Like he truly and completely meant every word he said. Elsa turned to ask him more, but he was already going down the steps into the hold.

And she wasn't about to be the one to follow him.

* * *

Corbas sat in his chair in the infirmary. It had been just over a day since he'd been caught in the princess's first outburst of power. He couldn't exactly blame her for what she'd done, and she'd apologized several times when she'd learned the extent of the damage. It was funny, he realized. She seemed so kind, so gentle, and then she'd smashed him against the ceiling with magical vines, smashed him hard enough to nearly break his collarbone. It wasn't bad enough that he needed a bed, but he was on watch in the infirmary for a reason.

He couldn't really fathom it. That sweet little princess, nearly putting him in bed for weeks with a terrible injury. Amazing what the world could turn out.

* * *

Corbas was roused from his sleep in the chair by the ringing of the warning bells, the roar of cannons, screams of the Ember contingent. He tried to look out the nearest window and found that he couldn't see beyond two inches, for all the snow that was falling.

Snow this heavy so early in the season? Warning bells and screams and cannons? That could only mean that the Lion Knights had caught up to them, with the queen of Arendelle in tow.

His suspicions were confirmed moments later when he saw a dozen Knights with red robes beneath their armor burst through the door and begin working their through the room, cutting down guards and any wounded who leapt up to try and fight them.

The Red Seventh. Lead by the Vandal. Corbas could guess what would happen if he tried anything. But that wasn't about to stop him.

He teleported himself beneath a cot nearby one of the dead guards, and reached for the blackfire bombs on his belt. He teleported himself right onto the cot above him, and lit the first bomb, hurling it into the midst of the Knights, who were blasted off their feet as the explosive went off.

The spear that was thrust through Corbas' gut moments later forced him to admit that the reputation of the Knights' Seventh Company was a reputation well-earned.

* * *

Galmorn sat back in his chair and tipped a bit more feed into Archimedes' dish. He reached up and stroked her neck with a finger, then, indulging a little curious whim, dipped his finger into her dish and plucked a few pellets that he popped into his mouth. The taste was… interesting. He spat a pellet into his hand and tossed it into the air, watching it spark against the force field generated by the… he realized he'd forgotten the name of the device keeping him safe from potentially grievous bodily harm.

He decided that he really ought to start labeling his things more extensively.

He tipped back in his chair as the door to his lab caved in beneath a shield, and several knights rushed into the room, along with a ginger-haired man and a woman who looked like…

"Oh, yes." He said with relish, leaping from his chair and sliding his goggles over his head, engaging the magnifier and dropping the lenses into place. He gave a little cry of excitement and chose to politely ignore the incredulous expression on her face. "Oh, if you could see yourself with these," Galmorn tapped his goggles. "See the energy flowing and whirling around in you…" He sighed happily. "You are a wonder, your majesty."

That seemed to catch everyone off-guard, as the queen and the man and all the knights just stood and gave each other weirded-out looks.

"Not too sure if you'll care," Galmorn started, returning to his chair. "But for the record, I just work here." He laced his fingers behind his head. "I strap newcomers into the chair over there, give 'em a little zap and turn on their magic. That's literally my only real job here. Everything else: just collected curiosities, things they bring back as payment. Some experiments." He quickly sat up straight and tried to look as serious as he could. "Don't touch the box labeled 'MXIIV" though. Just… don't."

A Knight, clad in black armor, a bear pelt draped across his shoulders, approached the field, hefting a large iron broadsword.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Galmorn warned. "Really, I wouldn't."

The knight swung his sword into the bubble-shape of the field, and was blasted backwards through the air on a bolt of energy.

Galmorn tisked. "I did warn him." He hopped out of his chair and stood at the very edge of the field, leaning in close to the queen's face. "But, anyways, there anything I can help you with?"

The queen looked rather taken aback for a second, before her face took on a rather resolute expression.

"You can tell me where to find my sister. We've checked every cell we could, and we haven't found her yet."

"Oh, your sister!" Galmorn said excitedly. "Ah, she was just… she was absolutely fantastic. But you probably know that already, being her sister and all. As for where she is…"He paused, his natural cheerfulness draining. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I generally don't have much to do with anyone or anything outside of this room. Only one here left who might know is Daud. Provided you lot haven't killed him yet." He half-yelled the last bit at the knights. "I'd look for him in the main tower, or in the antechamber."

Galmorn plopped back into his chair as the company filed out.

"And if you could maybe not just straight-up kill him after you get what you want out of him, that'd be great." He called to their backs. "He's a pretty okay guy… y'kow, considering."

**I realized I really didn't have an actual siege scenario in mind for the citadel. And, though I apparently write good battle scenes (who'd have thunk it? (not me, that's for sure)) I wasn't going to put out something that I would have to piece together awkwardly on the fly. So instead I opted for something that's sort of a on-the-edge-of-a-battle character moments compilation. I have to say, I'm rather pleased with how it worked out.**

** The next chapter is just going to be a huge fight between Elsa and Daud. THAT bit I've had planned as far back as when Marius went to town on Mortemer in the palace.**

** I also just have to say I'm glad that bit between Hans and Elsa didn't end up being just a scene of fluff crammed into a completely un-fluffy story. I was worried when I got Hans talking about stars, but I think I salvaged it.**

** Also, any history buffs want to take a stab at what reference the title of "the Vandal" is referring to? Here's a hint: the person who has the title was named in Chapter 9. The rest of the info you need is in the chapters themselves.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Note: Well, classes have been going for four days now, and I already feel unbelievably beat. Or maybe I'm just naturally lazy.**

**But I'm not about to let that stop me. Updates just won't be as frequent as they have been. We're now on the schedule of "only written when I really feel like writing/have the time to spare." But anyways, we've got a smackdown between Elsa and Daud. You've payed for the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge!**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 13

The search for Daud in the tower had turned up nothing but more panicking Acolytes who the Lion Knights made short work of. Though, as Hans noted, they'd only checked the tower first because it had been much closer than the antechamber.

Elsa shifted on her feet and reached her hands up around her shoulders as they passed by the empty holding cells again. She couldn't stand the possibility that they might not find Anna, that they might have arrived too late…

She felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw Hans behind her. He didn't say anything, but it was clear he knew what she was feeling. She let him hold his hand a few seconds more before she gave him a slight nod and pulled away.

* * *

They burst through the doors, and had to stop and gaze in wonderment and sadness at what lay on the other side. A massive room, easily large enough to hold hundreds of people and still have extra space, ornate statues of iron and gold and stone, along with finely crafted tapestries and banners depicting ancient, mighty deeds of heroes had all been torn down and left to fester where they fell. At the far back of the room, there was an enormous statue, missing various chunks and limbs.

Standing behind the altar before the larger statue was Daud.

"You!" Marius screamed, pointing his sword at the assassin. "You dare defile this place with your presence?"

"Men like us dare to do a great many things, General." Daud called back.

"And was this latest dare worth it?" Marius crowed. "Your stolen fortress in ruins, your people slaughtered-"

"Enough!" Elsa yelled, channeling her anxiety, her fear, and her growing frustration into a blast of power that she directed at Daud. The assassin simply teleported away from the altar and into the antechamber proper, where the beam had already passed. It struck the statue behind the altar, consuming it in a wave of jagged ice. "Where is my sister?" Elsa demanded, storming towards Daud.

"You really expect me to tell you?" Daud asked. Elsa raised one hand and let magic radiate from her fingers in response. Daud chuckled sadly to himself.

Elsa's face contorted furiously, and she launched a ball of ice at Daud who quickly ducked beneath the projectile, which shattered against a pillar at the other end of the antechamber. Daud quickly closed the distance and threw a fierce punch, but Elsa quickly created a small wall of ice to block him. She made the wall melt and fired a blast of magic in front of Daud's feet.

Daud teleported away as Marius, Vitalion, Hans, and several Knights had to stop short their rush in to help when Elsa's beam exploded outward from the floor, creating a wide bed of frozen spikes. Elsa whirled around and gathered magical energy between her hands as Daud drew his sword and slowly approached. Elsa felt the energy between her fingers coalesce and released it, creating a large spike of ice that shot through the air. Daud leaped over it, and teleported again, reappearing right above Elsa, swinging his sword straight down towards her.

* * *

Elsa threw her hands up and was somewhat surprised when her hands and arms suddenly coated themselves in a layer of ice that deflected Daud's attack. She spun around and backed away from him, slowly getting herself more under control. She was doing far better than she thought she would have, but that was more thanks to luck. Daud was a trained killer, and she couldn't afford to respond to him in kind. She needed him to find Anna.

She had to think, to play this smart. An idea struck her, and she let a clever, mischievous smirk grow over her face. She could see that Daud was wondering exactly what she'd come up with.

She'd show him.

Elsa stomped one foot on the ground, creating a coating of ice that spread across the floor. She focused as the ice spread, forcing it to shape itself, going around the columns and debris instead of freezing them. Then, she started to make it rise from the floor and come together, forming a large, highly irregular dome of ice that held her and Daud, with a great deal of the ice itself beneath their feet.

Elsa focused on that ice, the ice that made up the space between the bottom of the cube and the floor they stood on. It slowly started to melt when Daud teleported in front of Elsa and cut at her, aiming for her legs. She conjured up another wall of ice around Daud's moving sword, holding it in place for a few seconds before the assassin tore the blade out and whirled around, trying to see where she'd gone.

Elsa dove out from behind one of the nearby pillars and blasted Daud with a burst of snow, then shifted her attention back to the ice beneath the two of them. She focused again, willing it to melt as quickly as she could.

Daud burst out of the pile of snow and sailed towards her through the air, bringing his sword up over his head. Elsa waited, letting the now slush melt just a bit more before she dove to the side, leaving a tiny magical imprint upon the ice where'd shed been standing.

Daud's sword smashed into the floor and the ice broke in a wide circle. He fell through the gap into the freezing water Elsa had created. She quickly sealed the hole, leaving Daud trapped beneath the floor. He raised his sword and hammered at the ice above him, but Elsa reinforced it with her powers.

Daud could see that trying to break through the ice was futile, and so opted for a simpler approach. He disappeared in a burst of black smoke that was absorbed into the water. Elsa spun around as a sopping wet Daud charged her from behind, sword already in motion.

Elsa held out her hands, projecting the barest bit of magic. Daud's sword froze as it neared her, and she curled one hand into a fist, growing a coating of ice over it. She threw a punch just as the blade came down, and the frozen, brittle sword shattered. Daud stumbled back, weaponless, and Elsa pressed her advantage, giving the assassin a few good hooks in the gut with her ice-covered hand. She wound up and landed a punch to Daud's face that would have made Anna proud. Daud crashed on his back, and Elsa cast a layer of ice over his still-sopping-wet form. She then slowly dissolved the ice dome around them.

* * *

"So," Elsa said, standing over Daud with a smug expression on her face, "You want to tell me where my sister is now?" Daud chuckled again, then shifted uncomfortably as Elsa blew more ice onto him.

"I never said I wouldn't tell you," Daud offered. "I just asked why you thought I would."

"Why would you tell any of us anything?" Hans asked suspiciously.

"Because of your sister." Daud said simply, directing his reply at Elsa. "I have captured and reeducated new members for the Covenant for so very long… yet, I failed to do so with her. And, I realized what it was I was truly doing. I have done… unbelievable things in the name of a cause I never truly believed in. I'm tired, of all of it. And I would not see her suffer the fate I have."

"What do you mean?" Elsa had to ask. "What happened to you?" Elsa had the distinct impression that Daud was smiling beneath his mask.

"The same thing that happened to all who did not join the Covenant by choice."

* * *

Daud rotated one shoulder, stiff from his time in the ice, and pointed at the map he had had the Knights retrieve. He was also careful to not lean backwards into the sword a knight held just behind his shoulder blades.

"She was taken away two days ago, by more... important and capable members. Their destination is here," Daud tapped a small island in the northeast. Elsa reached down and marked it with a quill. "The Covenant's fortress monastery, built nearby the remains of the resting place of their god-king."

"So that's where we have to go?" Elsa asked hurriedly.

"No. The monastery is their ultimate destination, but they're not about to travel the whole of the way on foot." Daud tapped the map again, this time at a point well up a nearby coast. "Here, we have an outpost with a large stock of portal crystals. They'll make their way there, and portal to the monastery."

"Why couldn't they just portal their way right to the monastery, like you did to get here?" Elsa asked.

"Wait you…" Daud had to stop for a few seconds. "You really thought that one crystal was enough to get me all the way here?" He laughed, though not unkindly. "A crystal like that can send someone quite a distance, but not purely on its own." Daud tapped the map again. "That outpost contains a device, a megascope, that amplifies the effects of crystal spells. Once they get there, they'd be able to go anywhere they want."

"But, what you're telling me is-"

"There's still time for you to catch them before they get there."

* * *

"So," Daud asked, gazing at the Lion Knights' fleet. He shifted slightly at the sword a Knight of the Twelfth had pressed close against the back of his neck. "What will you do with me now that I've outlived my usefulness?"

"What would you do if we let you go?" Marius asked.

"I'm no fool, General. I know I cannot make up for the things I've done. But I don't believe it would be wrong to try and begin to." Daud said. Vitalion sighed.

"Much as we would love to kill you," Vitalion admitted, "We're a bit more civilized than that." He motioned to the Knight, who withdrew the sword.

* * *

Elsa walked back into the antechamber, taking one final look around. She noticed Marius kneeling at the far end of the room, before the statue behind the altar. She slowly approached, and took a closer look at them. It seemed no worse for wear from her ice blast, though she could just as easily thaw ice as create it.

The statue was made of iron, and while it was heavily damaged, its features were still fairly visible. It was a tall man, clad in armor that was startlingly similar to that of the Lion Knights, but far more primitive. In one hand it held a sword and shield, and a helmet in the other. The face of the statue was a maelstrom of emotions; anger, burning desire, a willingness to kill. Yet there were others that came across just as clearly. A strange kindness, and an innate respect for those it gazed upon, a fairness in judgment, as though all were equal before its eyes.

"Faraam." Marius said, startling her. He rose up and slid his sword that he had propped himself upon back into its scabbard. "One of those unfashionable gods from long ago."

"What sort of god was he?" Elsa asked.

"He was a god of war, a god of justice and vengeance."

"Those seem a little… at odds." Elsa offered cautiously.

"When war is made, make it upon the wicked, to protect those who cannot protect themselves. When victory is assured, treat those innocent defeated well. When you have lost, ensure those responsible pay the price." Marius looked back at the statue. "A few simple tenants."

* * *

Marius watched as Galmorn carried Archimedes, in her cage, aboard one of the Thirteenth Company's ships.

"Remind me again why we agreed to let him come along?" Marius asked.

"The queen thought he might be useful, and Tarkus agreed to put him up." Vitalion responded.

"While I'm sure he's knowledgeable… if we can't get to the transport group in time, we're going to need a very different sort of help." Marius grudgingly admitted.

"Who did you have in mind?"

"See if you can't get the word out, try and find the Captain."

"Aiming for sea superiority, Marius?" Vitalion asked, slightly amused.

"You want to fight your way to the Covenant's monastery on land?" Marius asked incredulously. The only way to do that would be to go through the Lowering-"

"Okay, yes. I see your point." Vitalion quickly admitted.

Marius chuckled to himself and went down into the hold.

**I'm going to be fairly honest; I'm not totally pleased with this, at least compared to previous chapters.**

**I think it's how I billed Daud; I thought of him as a sort of repentant bad guy, and then I realized that, as a repentant bad guy, he wouldn't start a fight with the good guys. Therefore, I had to figure out how to actually start the fight, despite one entire party not wanting to. So Elsa overreacts and starts the fight. It also didn't help that I really didn't have any major part of the fight (or chapter, really) planned except for Elsa's play with the water-filled ice cube (there were actually some much darker happenings that I realized I didn't need for the fight, so I cut them. Not out of the story, just out of this bit).**

**Plus, I think some school anxiety is seeping in.**

**I'll try and work on that.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Note: So, yeah. Classes. And Major-Doubt. That's really al I have to say for the fact that I haven't updated in a week. But like I said before, we're basically on a "I write when I feel I can spare the time/am not utterly burned out from schoolwork" schedule. Forcing myself to put something out on a truly exacting basis kinda… drains a bit of the fun of writing. Like I need to come up with stuff to fill a chapter that I need to write even if I'm not sure said chapter is vaguely ready in my head enough to try and write it.**

**But enough about my thoughts and problems. Those aren't what you all come here for.**

**Oh, voice actor note: We'll be meeting Fabius (the Covenant's other scientist who Galmorn does not care for whatsoever) and he'd be voiced by Mark Oliver.**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 14

Anna slumped further down against the wall and prepared to try again. She'd been sitting in the small cell for over a day. Since the near-minute her new captors had arrived, they'd slapped cuffs on her and lead her to a cell. She'd spent most of the time since trying to force her way out.

She looked down at the obviously magical cuffs clapped over her wrists. Glowing lines ran all through the metal, and the center of each seemed to have something very warm in it. At least, that was what it felt like every time she tried to use her magic. The energy would start pooling in her hands, and she'd even got it to leave her fingers a few times, but the cuffs around her wrists sucked the power into themselves. And then they got hot.

She held her hands out in front of her, and focused, feeling a strange tingling build in her. It shifted down her arms, then further to her palms. She could see misty green energy curling off her fingers. She splayed her fingers out and tried to project the magic. It got maybe an inch away before the metal lit up and sucked the energy in, the lines changing from white to green and slowly going back again.

"When are you going to accept that that won't work?"

Anna threw an angry glare at the speaker, standing on the other side of the door. He was the only member of the Covenant she'd seen who didn't wear a mask. A somewhat wrinkled face set between long white hair. He always looked… curious. But in a very unsettling way. She'd heard the others call him Fabius.

"Probably…" Anna pretended to mull his question over. "Never." Fabius laughed.

"It's your kind of person that I most enjoy. The ones that don't break under re-education. The ones with fire and strength. Believe it or not, your kind is the most useful. It's simply a matter of finding the proper motivation."

* * *

Elsa carefully stepped out of the rowboat and sloshed through the surf as quietly as she could. She'd advised Marius that perhaps a more careful approach would serve them better this time. Marius had agreed, and put a plan together with Vitalion and Tarkus. Small detachments of Lion Knights, along with Elsa and anyone who would come with her, would sneak up to the coast in smaller boats and get to the Covenant's outpost on foot. From there, they would try and enter as carefully as they could, and keep the rest of the Knights on standby in the nearby forest ready to lay siege if things didn't go according to plan.

But they would, Elsa told herself. They had to.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned her head to see Kristoff looking at her with a slightly concerned, yet encouraging expression. He'd only just recently recovered from the wound he'd received when the Covenant took Anna, but he had made it clear that he wasn't about to wait on the ships while everyone else went to try and rescue her again. Elsa, and everyone else, had agreed.

They started to make their way into the forest, when a gasp of pain caught Elsa's attention. She quickly turned to Kristoff, assuming his wound was still acting up. But he looked fine. She then shifted to look at Hans, who was leaned up against a tree, holding a hand to his head.

"Having problems, Prince Charming?" Kristoff called somewhat uncaringly. The ice harvester was nowhere near close to trusting Hans, and Elsa, despite her slowly growing wonders, was of a similar opinion.

"Just a little headache. It's nothing." Hans replied, steadying himself and moving into the trees.

* * *

Anna twisted her face into a grimace of incredible concentration, trying as hard as she could to project magic past the cuffs, and failing yet again. She was so absorbed in trying to even make anything happen she didn't hear the footsteps outside her cell door. When the keys clicked and the door was roughly shoved open, she jumped in her seat, startled.

Fabius was standing in the doorway, a devious-looking smile on his face. That immediately set Anna on her guard. Anything that would make that man smile couldn't mean anything good for her.

"It seems," Fabius began, "That your family and what is left of the Lion Knights have been following you." His smile widened as Anna felt hope well up within her. "Unfortunately for you and them, I cannot allow them to take you. However, I had an… idea as to how that might come about."

"And you're telling me because…?" Anna simply let the question hang.

"Because you will do it, princess."

* * *

Fabius and two Acolytes lead Anna into a large, circular room. In the very center was a pedestal. Something large and round sat there, covered by cloth.

"Why on Earth would I do anything to my sister? To the people who are here to help me?" Anna demanded.

"Remember what I said earlier, princess? About proper motivation?" Fabius walked to the pedestal and drew the cloth off the pedestal, revealing a large glass ball that swirled with dark mist. "Here is where you learn the exact meaning." Fabius turned back to her. "I will remove your shackles, and you will use your powers to drive the Knights away while our transport is prepared."

"What makes you think I'll do anything you want me to?" Anna asked defiantly.

Fabius smiled. It was a very unsettling smile. Like he was about to do something that would hurt her immeasurably, and he knew and liked it.

"Because, princess, we have had an agent in your sister's presence for some time now. And if you refuse any command we might give you from here on, that agent will kill her."

* * *

Anna couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't even feel shocked. The very idea was…

"You're lying." She said, reflexively.

"So, you refuse. Perhaps," Fabius turned to the glass ball. "A demonstration is in order." He held his hand out over the ball and a burst of green power shot from his palm. It burrowed into the glass and the mist within cleared. At the same time, a beam of light shot out from one side of the ball, projecting the image within.

* * *

Elsa pushed through a gaggle of branches when she heard screaming to her left. She turned and saw Hans sink to his knees, grasping his head and clawing through his hair. She ran towards him on instinct as the rest of the company stopped and moved to look at all the commotion. Elsa drew near him and kneeled close to him, not quite sure what she was doing.

"Hans, are you…" Elsa started to say but stopped. Hans had stopped screaming, had suddenly looked up at her. There was a faint glow inside his left eye, and the look on his face was some sort of mix between utter terror and disinterest.

Suddenly, he moved with incredible speed, grabbing Elsa by her shoulders and throwing her against the nearest tree. He drew his sword, that expression still on his face, but the terror somehow more pronounced. His arm seemed liked it moved on its own, thrusting the sword right for her.

Elsa whirled out of the way just the blade passed, sinking into the tree. She felt some of her dress catch and tear on the blade. Through that, she felt Hans quickly yank the sword out of the tree and saw him draw his arm back again.

Kristoff came out of nowhere and shoulder-charged Hans into another tree. His face contorted with fury, Kristoff ran at Hans and started wildly throwing punches. Hans ducked beneath them and checked Kristoff in the stomach, striking with far more strength than he should have had. Elsa released a blast of snow and wind.

* * *

"Stop!" Anna yelled as she tried to run forward. The Acolytes on either side of her grabbed her arms and held her back. She could see what was happening. How Elsa had nearly been run through. How whoever Fabius was… directing had just knocked Kristoff flat. How the torrent of wind and snow Elsa was releasing didn't seem to slow the attacker. "Stop, please!"

"You know how to make this stop, princess." Fabius replied. "And it won't stop until you do what you know you have to." He lowered his hand closer to the orb, and the magic pouring from his fingers grew brighter, more powerful.

* * *

Hans was, impossibly, moving through the tiny blizzard Elsa was shooting at him. He was almost on her, sword raised, that same look on his face.

Marius came from one side and slammed Hans with his shield. Hans seemed to bend in one direction, then quickly rebounded back and drove his sword-bearing fist into Marius' helmet. Marius tumbled backwards, and Hans moved, reaching for Elsa. He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him, bringing his sword-hand up in a punch that sent her spinning to the ground. He grabbed her braid and yanked her head around, standing over, looking her right in the face, that undercurrent of horror in his face more pronounced than ever.

He raised his sword to her throat.

* * *

"Enough!" Anna screamed. All she could see was Elsa's face, bruised and terrified, a sword held beneath her chin, about to cut her throat. "Enough." Anna said again, her tone far quieter, lacking her usual defiance. "I'll do it. I'll do… anything." She practically choked on the words, tears of anger building in her eyes. "Just… just don't hurt her." She begged, head dropping to look at the floor.

Fabius' smile grew so wide it was a wonder his face didn't split open. He lifted his hand away from the orb, the magic vanishing. He reached into a pouch on his belt and withdrew a teleportation crystal. He crushed it between his fingers and tossed the dust away, a glowing red-and-black portal bursting to existence in the midst of the dust.

Fabius picked the orb up from the pedestal, and directed his smile more closely at Anna.

"As I said, princess. All those like you require is the proper motivation."

* * *

The glow in Hans' left eye slowly faded and he suddenly collapsed to one side, hyperventilating, mumbling incoherently. He propped himself up a little, holding his side where Kristoff had shoulder-charged him, reaching for the arm where Maruis had struck him. He took a desperate, gulping breath, and promptly threw up onto the forest floor.

"What in all the Burning Hells was-" Elsa heard Vitalion say before the company's collective attention was grabbed by a burst of red light several yards away.

"General!" A voice yelled. Marius and the rest of the company began to quickly, but surreptitiously, move through the trees.

* * *

A member of the Covenant, his face uncovered, stood in a small clearing, his fram slightly blocking two Acolytes.

"I know you're out here, General!" The maskless man called. His white hair swept around him as he turned to gaze at the forest surrounding him. Elsa thought she saw a smile already on his face grow as he took it in. "And I know you're here with the Queen. That you're here for the princess." The man turned around and seemed to be fiddling with something. Elsa's breath caught in her throat and she tried to move, to aim a blast of ice, to run out in the clearing and-

Marius grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"If you want the princess," The man turned back around and held a pair of strange looking cuffs in the air. He then stepped to one side, raising his arm mockingly. "Here she is."

Elsa raised a hand to her mouth in horror. Anna looked terrible. Not physically. But the last time Elsa had seen a look of such hopelessness and sadness on her sister's face had been… she realized she hadn't before. Not to this depth. Maybe when their parents had died, but Elsa had only listened to her through the door. She'd never seen Anna then. She recalled Anna's expression at the coronation, when she commanded the celebration be ended. But even Anna's sorrow then paled to what she clearly felt now.

The white-haired man shifted something in his hand. A large glass orb. Energy began to glow around it, and Elsa thought she heard Hans groan in pain.

Anna stepped forward, and raised her hands, a misty green energy building over her arms, slowly travelling down to her hands.

"No." Elsa whispered. If they were about to make Anna do what Elsa thought they were-

A wave of energy exploded from Anna's outstretched hands, passing through the forest in front of her. Flowers sprung up in its wake, dark blue flowers and what looked like black, thorn-covered roses. A patch of ground began to glow, and suddenly, a line of roots shot up from the dirt, twirling and intertwining and shifting, forming what looked like a crude hand.

A crude man-shape of roots and wood, glowing with magic energy, clawed its way out of the ground. Across the clearing, several more began to form.

A loud cracking sound startled Elsa, and she shifted her gaze to a tree a few feet away. The tree writhed and shifted, branches twisting into facsimiles of arms and fingers, its trunk splitting apart to form legs that it tore out of the ground. Its trunk warped and cracked, power glowing within holes, forming a simple, brutish face.

The tree-creature looked down at the knights surrounding it. Its expression turned angry, and it opened its mouth and roared. It reached down with its branch-arms and scooped up several knights, smashing them into one another before throwing them into the ground. Other trees around the clearing were coming to life too, and the root-men were now leaping in from the clearing, firing bursts of steaming, burning sap or razor-sharp bolts of wood from their mouths and wrapping their long, powerful hands around swords and arms and necks.

"Fall back!" Marius screamed, hacking at a root-man that tried to ensnare him. Elsa stumbled back and was suddenly gazing up a furious tree-creature. She shot a blast of ice into its face as it roared at her. Getting to her feet, she fired a wide arc of ice behind the fleeing knights and gave Anna one last look, taking in the absolute misery and regret on her sister's face before she turned and ran.

**I wasn't quite sure how I was going to do this, but I'm much more pleased with this chapter than the last one. I think, any time I get to focus on emotions or describing magic, I can really get out something good.**

**That's just my take on it, anyway.**

**Also, I know I haven't been doing much with anyone besides the sisters lately, but that's kind of the point. This is a Frozen fic. I realized/decided well before I had even written chapter 3 that the characters the story was really about were Anna and Elsa. Marius can lead his knights and kick a lot of butt, Hans can be repentant and maybe re-evaluate his opinion of a certain magically-powered queen, Kristoff can be worried about Anna and do anything to help get her back, and Olaf can be... Olaf. But Anna and Elsa are the linchpins of the entire story. They are the main characters, the ones that matter. **


	15. Chapter 15

**Note: I had a bunch of ideas for what I wanted to happen here, and I've been in such a state of indecisiveness as to which to use, it's not even funny. I probably won't even get everything I've been indecisive about in here.**

**Hopefully, this doesn't come across as TOO much of a horrible slap-dash mish-mash.**

**Heh. Rhymes.**

**I do not own Frozen. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.**

In the Old World

Chapter 15

Elsa ran through the trees, hopping over a fallen log as the ground shook behind her. She looked to either side, and saw that Kristoff was still managing to keep the pace. Hans, now practically incoherent, was slung over Tarkus' shoulders, who didn't seem to notice the extra weight. Elsa turned her head back and saw the giant tree-beasts roughly shoving their way through the forest, the smaller root-men sprinting ahead of them. All of the magical creations were attacking them, firing razor-sharp bolts of wood and gobs of glowing, burning sap. Elsa saw a ball of the stuff launch out of a tree-beast's mouth and splatter over two knights. They dropped to the ground screaming, armor and cloth slowly melting off and onto their bodies.

She still couldn't bring herself to accept that Anna had done this. That her sweet, caring, slightly rambling sister could create such things. But, Elsa reminded herself, she'd created more than a few living snow creatures herself, Olaf and Jorgen chief among them. Jorgen, the giant brutish snowman guard… Maybe it wasn't so hard for her to believe that Anna, if she had no choice, could make something like that herself.

She just didn't want to believe it.

* * *

Marius ducked a stream of burning sap and swung his sword, slicing the head off of one of the pursuing root-men. He reached down and lifted one of the wounded knights to her feet. He heard a loud cracking sound behind him, and turned to see one of the tree-beasts looming over him. It reached for him with three hands.

Marius moved quickly, cutting off the smaller two hands before the largest first one reached him. He simply drove his sword up into the creature's palm, and dragged it back, slicing the hand down the middle. It pulled back and roared in pain, then it drew itself up and seemed to take a breath, lines of sap sucking back up into its mouth and nostrils. Marius could guess what was about to happen.

A sword came flying out of nowhere and embedded itself in middle of the creature's face. As it reeled backwards, its payload of sap exploding out onto the surrounding trees as it roared again, Marius spun around and saw Vitalion sprinting towards him. He held his shield out at an angle, and dug his heels into the dirt.

Vitalion jumped forward as he neared Marius, planting his feet firmly on the surface of the shield. Marius twisted and thrust the shield upward as Vitalion jumped again, the combined force launching the former commander high into the air. Vitalion reached out as the tree-beast turned around, a furious expression on its simple face. Vitalion's fingers closed around the hilt of his sword, and he dragged it down with him as he let himself fall. The blade cut a gaping hole down the tree-beast's face, and continued down into its torso before Vitalion finally tore the weapon loose and dropped to the ground, the tree-beast falling dead behind him.

* * *

Vitalion yanked the other knight to his feet, and ran beside him as Marius did the same.

"We can't do this, Maruis." Vitalion said. "We can run from these things, we can fight them, but we can't do both at once."

"I know." Marius replied angrily. It wasn't directed at Vitalion. It the anger of a man who was failing to protect the people he needed to. He thought as hard as he could while running for his life with a wounded knight hanging onto him. Then it hit him.

"Elsa." Marius yelled, not caring one bit at the moment for formality. "Can't you make something to slow these damned things down?"

He could tell by how her eyes widened that she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it sooner. She slid and spun on her feet, raising her hands up and letting magic flow into them. The energy visibly built until it seemed to obscure her hands themselves, then she thrust her arms out and released it all in a blast of light.

When the light faded, a great patch of the forest behind them was frozen, trees covered in frost, with great blocks of ice standing in every gap, forming an enormous wall. Some of the creatures had been caught in the path of the blast, and the ones who hadn't been smashed up in piles against the walls of ice.

Elsa let out a victorious cheer that several of the knights mimicked, before they all took a closer look at what was happening on the other side of the ice wall. The coating of frost around the tree-beasts and root-men who'd been caught in the blast was slowing dripping and cracking as they shook furiously inside their prisons. The creatures on the opposite side the ice wall beat and spat on its surface, smashing and melting away large chunks.

"I don't think that'll hold them for long." Marius heard the ice harvester yell.

"Can't you do anything… else?" The suggestion came weakly offered.

Everyone seemed to turn to the man slung over Tarkus' shoulders.

"Like what?" Elsa asked Hans.

"Like… them." He raised a hand and pointed shakily at the creatures. Several of the tree-beasts had now smashed a small hole in the wall, and the root-men were climbing them to reach it.

Elsa's expression was furtive, at first. Then it resolved into a somewhat frighteningly intense look of determination.

"Stand back." She said, raising her hands again.

* * *

The build-up of magic this time was so great, it looked she was holding some sort of tiny blue sun between her hands.

The tops of several root-men and tree-beasts tore out of their frosted forms as their unfrozen brethren began smashing through the walls in earnest.

Elsa let the energy shoot out of her hands and form into several whirling, nebulous whirlwinds. She twisted her arms and swirled her hands, shaping the magic, an expression of such incredible focus on her face she looked almost pained.

A tree-beast burst through one of the walls and rushed towards Elsa, roaring and reaching for her with all its arms.

A giant gauntlet made of ice shot out of one of the vortexes of power and punched the tree-beast, the wood of the beast's face cracking and crumbling beneath the great fist. The hand drew back into the vortex and an enormous, though somewhat stout-looking, knight formed of flowing ice emerged as the vortex faded. It raised a giant ice flail and swung the weapon down into the head of the tree-beast, smashing it to splinters.

The rest of the vortexes dissipated as more ice knights emerged. Some had swords, some how spears, some had simple clubs and cudgels. They stood in a perfect line before the mass of enchanted nature creatures, who had all suddenly stopped to collectively gawk at their new opponents.

"You should give her ideas more often." Tarkus grunted, shifting Hans on his shoulders.

* * *

Fabius pressed several sets of cuffs into the hands of a small group of Acolytes and Embers. He'd had them assemble shortly after they'd all returned to the outpost.

"Get down to the coast, and find the Knights and the Queen. Subdue her and any of her companions however you can. Then bring them back here."

He got what he knew were blank looks. Most couldn't tell the expressions beneath a masked face, but Fabius had been a part of the Covenant long enough to tell. "Have I been unclear?" he asked.

"What's the point of it?" One Ember asked. "We've got the girl, and she'll do what we tell her. Why go get the queen?"

Fabius sighed.

"What motivates one sister," he explained, "Will motivate the other. Especially if they and all their friends are readily on-hand." Fabius held up the Controller. "Methods like this are fine, but ultimately impractical compared to more simple ones. If we can take a lover, a friend, a sibling off to a room, most can stand maybe ten minutes of the screams before they do what we want them to." Fabius felt a smile grow on his lips. "Besides, we can always use another powerful sorceress, can't we?"

* * *

Anna sat on the floor of her cell, crying angry, silent tears.

The sounds had been the worst part. When the… monsters she'd created had chased Elsa and the Lion Knights off into the forest, Anna swore that she could almost hear them, even when they'd been far off. When she shouldn't have been able to hear anything from them anymore, she somehow could. The screams as men and women were trampled or burned. She could practically see them, as though she were looking through the eyes of the things she'd made.

She was almost glad when they'd clapped the cuffs back on her. At least then, the sounds had stopped.

* * *

Marius shifted, sliding between two trees. He took a moment to look at Tarkus, taking a slight break from carrying the southern princeling. The queen seemed to be standing somewhat tentatively near him, he noted. Then he shook his head, and started towards them. They'd put some distance between themselves and the battle of magical creatures, but they weren't about to start wasting time. They had to get to the boats as quick as they could, and from there…

Marius stopped and turned. He felt odd. As though someone was watching him. He prepared for the worst, and looked up into the trees.

Nothing. He was starting to become paranoi-

The telltale sound of a Covenant's teleporting spell sounded behind him, and he suddenly felt a hand grab his helmeted head and slam it hard against a tree. He heard a whirring sound, felt something thin wrap around his shoulders, and then found himself getting yanked up into the branches on a long wire. Marius looked down to see an Acolyte throw a glowing red vial high into the air, well above the tree line, before he vanished. The vial exploded in a burst of light and sound, a signal.

* * *

Quern teleported into the trees above the queen as the closest the Knights could come to panic set in amid their little group. He readied the syringe, and dropped down from the branches, aiming the needle right for the queen. She looked up as he descended, and her eyes widened. It was exquisite.

Then she moved. Stumbled, more like. The man she'd been standing near had shoved her out of the way. The man… Prince Hans.

Quern briefly reflected that things couldn't have gone more wrong before the syringe plunged into the prince's neck, the contents running into the man. He jerked slightly, then started shaking. Foam was building around the edges of his lips, and his left eye was flickering.

A black-armored hand shot out of nowhere and hurled Quern into a tree. A black iron broadsword swept across him so quickly, he didn't even feel it. After a second, the tree seemed to lean back, and his arms felt strangely cool and wet below his elbows. The black-armored knight reached out with the tip of his sword and prodded Quern.

The last thing he felt was a strange, downright wrong sliding sensation in his torso.

* * *

Marius dropped to the forest floor as Vitalion hacked through the wire.

"A scout." He said as he helped Marius to his feet. "More are sure to follow."

"And we can't spare the time to stand and fight them." Marius said. Vitalion nodded. They both knew they couldn't wait and hope the queen's creations could best her sister's. The only option they had was to get to the boats and return to the fleet. But they couldn't do that with a Covenant hunting party on their trail, and potentially a bunch of deadly living tree-monsters.

Marius drew his sword and started to head towards the center of the small, temporary site they'd set up.

"What in the Hells do you think you're doing?" Vitalion hissed furiously, grabbing Marius by his arm.

"Buying you and the others time." Marius replied simply. It wasn't the first time he'd done this. He could only hope he'd be as lucky as the last time.

"Damn it, Marius. Still think you have to be the one to handle everything, don't you?" That made Marius stop short.

"What do you mean?"

"This isn't like that time out East, Marius. We're not the only witnesses to the crimes of a Magistrate, and my word isn't the only one of ours that will carry weight. Things have changed. We've changed." Vitalion sighed. "Now, it's an old commander and the master-at-arms," Vitalion reached and clapped Maruis on the shoulder. "Or the man who saw reason, and lead our people out of our darkest hour. Now, forgive me if I sound a bit presumptuous, my friend, but I think I know which one of those the Fourteenth needs more."

Marius gritted his teeth and groaned furiously before he finally nodded. Vitalion began to walk away when Marius grabbed him and spun him around into a light hug.

"The second I reach the fleet, we're turning it around and we're coming back. I expect you to be alive and sitting on their corpses when we get here." Marius implored.

"Give me a little credit, lad." Vitalion's eyes said he was smiling beneath his helmet. "I'm not _that_ old and useless yet."

* * *

Anna somewhat numbly let Fabius guide her up the steps. They weren't quite ready to leave yet, he'd told her. But it was just as well she see just how they'd be leaving.

She didn't care. Not anymore.

They rounded the corner and went through a large wooden door. In the center of the room was a large, occult-looking circle, drawn in brightly colored paints. A metal holder stood empty near the center of the circle. A few feet away from the circle was a device made of gold and glass. A large lens was aimed at a map hanging on the wall behind the device, and another lens, slightly smaller, was on the other side, aimed at the metal holder in the circle. A crystal was held by several clamps in the center of the device.

Anna was so taken with the oddness of the device, she didn't notice the oddness of the occupants. How they were all slumped in chairs or over desks. She heard Fabius sigh, and turned her heard to watch as he approached an Acolyte, seemingly sleeping in a chair near the door. Fabius roughly shook the man, who tipped out of the chair and crashed to the floor, the chair following. Blood that had trickled from a tiny cut in the man's throat and pooled in the seat splattered to the floor. Anna looked around at the other Acolytes, now realizing with horror why they all looked so…

One of them, sitting at a chair with a hood pulled up, back facing the door, moved. He stood up and lifted a blood stained sword from behind his frame, twirling it around in his hand so he held it tip out. The Acolyte reached up and threw his hood back, revealing a weathered, slightly lined face. His hair was graying, and his expression… It was full of loathing and disappointment, and it looked like he couldn't decide if it was for the world or himself. He looked at Fabius, and tightened his grip on his sword.

"Daud." Fabius said in disbelief.

**I had not planned for Elsa to make ice knights, but a reviewer made a suggestion and… once the idea for "kinda fat-looking giant knights of ice" got into my head, I knew I had to do it. I also hadn't planned for Vitalion's moment of greatness, with the shield-jump and face-slice. But I figured, I was having him make a nebulous sacrifice play, and I felt like he hadn't done enough that that fact should mean anything. So I did my best to really characterize him here. I still need to decide if he's going to live.**

**And Daud's back. I realized that my somewhat unintentional vagueness as to what happened to him in chapter 13 could work to my advantage, and let me bring him back in an unexpected place to start stuff because I'd been so accidentally vague. Originally, he rather starkly said he'd stay out of the way.**

**I'm glad he didn't.**


End file.
